Europa: Tenno in the MCU
by Ultoriel
Summary: The activation of a Luan tower holding advanced secrets involving 'The Plan' to expand the Orokin empire to alternate dimensions pulls the tower, and the tenno inside, into the MCU, around the time Loki activated the Tesseract to come to Earth. Rated M because Warframe is too.
1. Testing

AN: This is a fore note/ disclaimer. I am inexperienced with this website and will be using this page to experiment. It will also provide a basic overview of the tenno characters featured in the story. You can safely skip this page without losing much of anything.

I do not own any Marvel characters featured in this story. I also do not own Warframe. The tenno are technically original characters, but they are tenno, which is part of the Warframe IP, so I don't fully understand where that all fits.

I will be playing fast and loose with the timeline, and will likely get some things wrong, purposefully or otherwise. I do intend to keep the internal timeline consistent, so if you see anything wrong there, let me know, but if my story contradicts the movies' timeline, blah.

I will also be changing up warframe abilities to an extent. To make them more like what I'd imagine they'd be without gamified restrictions. Things like limbo having to dash in order to enter the rift are gone because a real limbo would be able to just enter and exit as he damn well pleased.

Basic Bios:

Theris; Standard Saber personality. Unrelenting killer.

Load out: Stradavar, Twin Rogga, Skana Prime

Cephalon: Avalus.

Colors: Steel blue/grey with gold accents

Rain: Spider-Man-esque, bit more into your personal space. Fast paced killer.

Load out: Ferrox, Euphona Prime, Orvius

Cephalon: Thoril

Colors: dark greys/ black with purple accents.

Gemma: Logical, everyone goes to her for advice because she sees both sides of everything. Mass Killer.

Load out: Burston Prime, Kulstar, Lacera

Cephalon: Livra

Colors: Neutral grey with vibrant purple and yellow highlights.

Polis: Match for Thor, except a bit more subdued. Trade killer.

Load out: Opticor, Telos Akbolto, Ack and Brunt.

Cephalon: Bralin

Colors: warm browns with electric lime green highlights.

Matariel: Quiet in unfamiliar situations. Blitz killer.

Load out: Tigris Prime, Aklex Prime, Dark Split sword.

Cephalon: Coroneer

Colors: light grey/white with deep orange accents.

Teli: Doesn't express much. Long range killer.

Load out: Vectis Prime, talons, Rakta dark dagger

Cephalon: Minim

Colors: Pale green and wine red/purple.

Sandon: Cynical/poetic. Highest Quill standing, speaks similar to Onkko. Gruesome Killer.

Load out: Javlok, Staticor, Hirudo

Cephalon: Egys.

Colors: White, royal blue and yellow.

Siren: Mouthpiece for the group, reasonable and willing to explain. Precision killer.

Load out: Dex Sybaris, Despair, Destreza.

Cephalon: Senuran

Colors: Faded obsidian and chocolate brown, with red-gold accents.


	2. The First Real Chapter

SPOILERS for both Second Dream and War Within. You're here so I figured you know what Warframe is, and I highly encourage you go and experience the quests yourself, they are pretty great.

Chapter 1 (Tenno Centric)

Our mission WAS simple: Squads 1, 2 and 3 were to perform preliminary exterminations of the Luan tower -a fairly large one but nowhere near the largest- and then squad 4 would blare the alarms and distract Hunhow so that squad 5 could go in and extract information from the long disused information systems.

But no.

"Something's wrong." I, the loki, announced over the squad comm. "The data is decompressing. I can't stop it. Lotus! Any rooms nearby where I can dump and recompress the data mass?"

"Yes, but you have to hurry. Head towards the void anchor room, it's local interface should be able to rearrange the data into a more manageable size." The Lotus responded readily, but she seemed distracted. I pushed the thought out of my mind, no time. The data mass growing more and more unstable in my hand, I blew through the crisp but decrepit golden hallways. I was just rounding a sharp turn when a twisting blue mist nearly hit my shoulder. I couldn't help the startled grunt that came out when I twisted just barely out of the way. That was an _inconsistency_ , part of the fallout of tearing the moon back out of the void, but they were only found in the data vaults, something to do with the nature of security systems. For one to be out here is very strange, and even more dangerous. No telling when they'll send me out here. A transmission appeared on my overlay. "Be advised; the data mass appears to be the cause of several discontinuities in your area. Get that data into the anchor room's computer system asap." The edge to the lotus' voice transferred to an edge in my speed. There. At the end of the hall; the blue hardlight banner the read 'Cunning', that's where the anchor would be. The dormant security eye lay unmoving, sitting on the most easily accessible data port, no choice but to piss it off so that I could get the data out of my hands. I shot both of the gilded stoppers in the ceiling, letting the water behind them flow down as the eye lit up and the golden rings began to spin.

I gave it no chance. Before it could ID me as the 'threat' I ran straight at it, slid under and shoved the data mass directly into its docking port. The eye immediately shut down and drifted back into place.

No sooner had the eye clicked into place than the whole room began to him with power. "Tenno, I am detecting a sizable buildup of void energy. If you stay much longer the consequences could be catastrophic. Get out of there."

But it was too late. Small blue lights began to erupt from the huge anchor-columns, tearing holes in the fabric of time and space and like when a stray string on a sock or rug is pulled, they began to unravel the universe around them, putting out their characteristic blue and white mist. But they didn't stop at their usual size. They coalesced into larger and larger tears, growing exponentially until they engulfed the gold and white columns. I dived off the balcony, and landed in front of a door 3 stories below. The door was locked, this was the farthest I was going to get. I turned, facing what was most likely imminent demise. I distantly heard the lotus urgently speaking in my ear, unable to do anything. Ignoring her, I spoke to my clanmates, both within my squad and without; "Brothers and sisters, prepare yourselves." The comms went silent.

The inconsistencies had never made noise, and normally were more objects of curiosity, a useful tool more than something to be feared. Not now. I watched as the cloud grew, as it grew it slowed down, the scattered points of light began to move toward the center of the cloud. Becoming brighter and brighter as they merged into a single bright star amidst the swirling blue.

Even with my reflexes, faster than any in my clan (except maybe Rain) I didn't have time to brace myself for the pulse of white light, and everything went to static.

Getting kicked out of transference hurts. So why in the boundless void does the universe keep finding ways to do it?! I can't decide which is worse, the headache or the almost incapacitating weakness that follows. Like I just got through the whole continuity fiasco not 3 weeks ago, can we not make a habit of this? Please?

"Attempting to re-establish connection." that was Coroneer, my ship cephalon. "Strange, -CAN SOMEBODY GET THIS- there is some strange interference. Compensating."

Static.

Static.

Static clearing.

Reconnecting to my surrogate limbs, I set my mind on overdrive. "Oi. Squad. Sound off." Having said that I began assessing my situation from both ends. My warframe took a bit of a hit, but my shields were already back online. My energy pool, on the other hand, had a much larger chunk taken out of it. Thank you quick thinking. Judging by the aches I must have hit the rounded door and bounced, my instinctual grip on my weapons prevented me from losing my Aklex prime. My Tigris prime and Dark split sword were both still connected. All in all, a good-

"Chroma and I are accounted for. Equinox was in the next room over, Inaros one further, moving to secure." That was Theris, in an Excalibur, part of the survival squad. Most newly awakened of us, he has yet to fully grasp our newer procedures. Good to see him keeping up. "I'll leave it to you then." I responded. Glancing up to see a now missing cloud, I turned to inspect the door behind me. It was back to blue-lit, meaning it was open. I set off at a run. "Rain here. Weak signals from both Ivara and Banshee. I'm closer to A than you are."

"Understood. Cunning room ahead, meet there." Rain and I were close friends, it takes very few words between us to convey our intentions. He would go and check on Teli while I secured objective B, having already obtained the data from objective C.

As I rushed over to vault B I decided to start processing what just happened. What could have caused the data to start uncoiling like that, our data manipulation is by far and away the best in the system, reducing both corpus and grineer locks to mere connect the dots and timing inputs, respectively. And while this is nothing to brag about when it comes to the grineer, that doesn't excuse what happened. "Rain, help me with this. Data mass destabilizes, discontinuities appear _outside_ data vaults, which then coalesce and then explode large enough to cover the entire tower."

"Causality? Best guess would be the data had an anti-theft virus, good job plugging it back in time. As for the… wait. I've secured Ivara, I'm going to go look out a window."

Before I could respond, Teli spoke up. "Where are we meeting?"

"Cunning room up ahead. Go straight back when you reach the broken executor room, there will be a sharp turn and you'll be right there. Rain, what do you see?"

"..."

"Rain?"

"... You're _definitely_ going to want to see this." Rain sounded shocked. Rain never sounds shocked.

"What? Why?" His tone was troubling. I have not him speak like that since the shadow stalker first came after him. I ran as fast as I could to the nearest observation room.

"Rain, you are wrong. I did NOT want to see this." I looked outside at Lua. An _unbroken, bare, uncolonized_ Lua. No great cage arching overhead, no chunks of the moon the size of mountains hovering stately above us. The horizon was bereft of towers, the skyline flat.

This was _wrong._ Very, very, wrong.

Over the blood pounding in my ears I barely heard Theris and a few of the others frantically trying to contact the Lotus. "Lotus respond. Where the hell are we? Lotus? LOTUS?" There was no time to wait for instructions. I had to take charge. "All Tenno en mission. This is Matariel Zenurik. **I am assuming direct control.** "

Silence rocked the comms.

"Good. The situation is such: We are out of contact with the Lotus. We have yet to confirm or deny access to our arsenals. The somatic disconnect seems to only have been due to shock of some sort. Our first order of business must be to secure and establish a safe area that is both defensible and allows for analysis of our current location. I should think it obvious that we are not on the Lua we know any more.

"Everyone, spread out. Find anywhere suitable and report back. Which spy objective contained the memory lock?" Siren quickly spoke up. "Mine. I had just passed it when the ...shift? Happened."

"Alright, you and I will attempt to contact our ships and Lotus using that terminal, that one likely has the most raw computing power. Everyone clear?" Everyone responded affirmative, and we were off. We ran full tilt, as there was no reason not to and understanding this new situation was quite high on our priority list. I realized Rain never finished his earlier thought. "Rain, what was your earlier hypothesis?" I asked him.

"Transdimensional jump." He responded. "We've seen weirder."

I pondered this. If what he said is indeed true, then it was even more imperative that we contact our ships. If we were in another reality, we had to get to a place where we could see the Earth. We couldn't from this tower, as it was located on the other side of Lua. "We will run with that assumption until evidence to the contrary is uncovered. Continue your search." "Roger."

Siren and I reached the console and began accessing its framework. Hoping to secure an intact comm array. Siren succeeded before I did. "Hello? Hello? Calling ship cephalon Senuran. Can you hear me?" "Yes! Yes I can mistress! How goes the -SLAUGHTER- mission?" The ship cephalon was enthusiastic, as usual. "We've been derailed. Can you lock on to my location?" "N-no. Something is interfering with your locator. Did something happen?" Siren took a moment to word her response. "Something happened with one of the data masses and long story short we appear to be in another universe."

"WHAT IN THE ACTUAL- world are you doing in another universe? That is against all kinds of protocols, who knows what kind of impact this will have? There's only a HALF precedent, but I'm not sure that counts. And-" "Calm down Senuran, contact the Lotus. We need access to her knowledge base." Siren was good at being rational, and while the title of calmest under all circumstances belonged to Gemma, Siren never let what she felt change how she acted.

Which is why when a Battalyst found its way through the door neither of us hesitated to put _all_ the bullets straight through its core.

"All operatives." I addressed everyone. "Be advised, there is still a sentient presence in the tower. Operate with caution. Chroma, Ivara, I'm reassigning you to seek the remaining sentient forces. Everyone else, avoid alerting any Oculysts to your presence, I don't want to take on any carriers until we have established ourselves."

Rain piped up "On the bright side I have in fact confirmed that challenge rooms still drop mods. Anybody in need of a Speed Drift?" A waypoint appeared on my minimap. I internally sighed. Even now, he still couldn't resist goofing off. I decided to let it slide, I had to get to figuring out internal sensors. "Banshee, any word from the Lotus?"

"She is almost as clueless as we are, she's contacted a couple limbo savants to see if they can piece any theories together, I'm going to see if we can't transmit whatever was in that data mass you were carrying back over, maybe that will yield some results. I've got this end handled, go see if you can't trace the branch responsible for this console over to an external array. There's some corruption that I can't clear up, I think due to some physical malady." I turned and left. If she said she didn't need help, she didn't need help. Once I had located the external array I would tag out with Gemma and she would do any fixing necessary while I used my Tigris Prime to help out Teli and Polis since it was much better equipped to take down sentient drones.

"A possible hub room has been located, its proximity to both the comm vault and the anchor room make it ideal, and that's not including the fact that it is a vacant penitentiary." That was Sandon, the Inaros. "That is a good find." I said. "Are there any contesting locations?" When no one had yet found a better location I made the call. "Alright then, that room is going to be our common room and personal quarters. Everyone withdraw and meet up there."

We had no qualms using an orokin jail as our living area since a warframe's needs were so Spartan, and since it was an older jail the warden's patrol area was well furnished for their comfort and convenience. Typical orokin.

Once we were all gathered, except for Siren, who was still working on coordinating Intel with the Lotus, I addressed everyone once again. "First order of business, does anyone have a stock of decent specters? Those would be much preferred to stationing actual Tenno on the perimeter."

"Two dozen chargers, 15 shield ospreys, 40 corrupted lancers, 10 healers, 5 Corrupted bombards, and 30 Clem."

"Ivara, what do you have _that_ many specters for?" I sighed.

A silent stare was all I got in response.

"... Never mind. Go set up their patrol routes. You are in charge of perimeter monitoring until we get a scanning suite up and running." She activated prowl and disappeared into the hallway. Before I could start speaking again Siren spoke over the rooms audio projectors. "I have achieved full connection with the Lotus and she is now able to guide us as per usual. She would speak to us now."

"Put her through." I said.

"Tenno, I must first confirm that you have in fact somehow been transferred to another version of our universe. We can only guess as to the timeframe relative to our native one. Though the lack of any permanent Luan structures does suggest a time that is equivalent to pre-orokin. As for your armories and ships, I asked several limbo savants and they were able to call in some favors from the syndicates. While we likely won't understand exactly what happened, we can recreate the event that sent you over, and will send you your ships and orbiters within the hour so that you have full access to your armories in order to deal with whatever this new world will throw at you. I'm confident that you can handle it. For now, your orders are to continue gathering as much information as you can, see if you can't make contact with humans native there, the idea of a first contact scenario was given up a long time ago. It's time to set a precedent." And like that, she was gone again.

Theris spoke into the ensuing silence. "I'll go clear out a landing pad I found earlier. Inaros, Chroma, come with me." They set out. With that everyone once again dispersed. I walked over to the jail gate room. Orokin jails were unique in that once imprisoned it was actually impossible to get out. The gate room consisted of 5 consoles of various tiers arrayed above a slanted miniature void gate. Once you pass through the golden ring there was no way to turn the gate back on. The dereliction of Lua however, broke that system, the portals were now permanently open from the inside and the outside could be changed at will. Cleaning up the many different jail cells would allow for multiple mission sensitive and other critical items to remain safe and out of the way. Now that we knew our ships were inbound there was no need for personal quarters, so having the storage would be helpful. I dialed up a console, the starry portal flickered, and I received an occupied signal. I dialed another, and another until I finally got one that wasn't being used. There was no way to tell what was in the rooms on the other side, so I decided to play it safe and find an unoccupied room to search. I quickly memorized the sequence for the room and jumped through the portal. Taking a moment to look around, I scanned the assortment of lockers, opening them one by one. Sometimes an ammo box or two dropped out, sometimes some credits, one even dropped an ayatan cyan star.

"Well found. Though I doubt we'll be able to use them. Trade, maybe, but no endo from them or any statues until we get back in contact with Maroo." I turned and saw Gemma standing on the steps leading down into the room. I quietly stared at her, she correctly interpreted my question. "I'm going through and exterminating anything… unwanted, personnel or otherwise." I nodded. Tossing her the star, I went back to opening the lockers, she turned and went back through the portal. Once I finished, I went and kneeled in front of the twisted white plant that decorated the middle of the small room. Placing my Tigris Prime, Aklex Prime, and my dark split sword on the ground. I began to meditate, waiting for our landing craft to arrive.

* * *

On a screen deep underground in a SHIELD base, a small blip appeared on one of the scanners pointed at the moon. It was the second one an hour later that grabbed the agent's attention. The anomaly would have been reported and analyzed, but the sirens started blaring. The higher ups called for an evacuation. Everything was to be downloaded, then wiped. With the ground collapsing beneath him, the agent completely forgot about the readings and focused on getting out the base. It would be weeks before the readings were found again.

* * *

AN: K, here's the first chapter. I hope this doesn't blow up in my face. Comment's welcome! I've been staring at this for a long time so fresh perspectives are refreshing! Also, for the remainder of this work I will use warframes and their prime versions interchangeably, due to the ever changing nature of the game, I will be using this order of preference for what 'skin' a tenno uses: DeluxePrimeNormal. You are free to imagine them with whatever skin you want, but that's what I'm going with. That being said, If anyone knows the quickest way to incorporate images into a work, let me know and I will do a captura scene for each Tenno, just to make things easier.


	3. Some Weird Human

I spun around, ducked under the axe swing, and brought my leg around to sweep out his feet from under him. He jumped over and brought the axe down toward my head. I backflipped out of the way, but was forced to land badly. I knew he was coming, so I preemptively activated warding halo and left myself open to the incoming attack. The strike sent me flying. Now I could take a few extra hits, but I was still nowhere near up to snuff with him. I threw my chakram before I hit the wall, forcing Polis to split his attention. The Chroma paused, and I used that moment to fire my Ferrox and teleport to the chakram, which would be passing behind him…

Now.

It was over in a flash. But not a shot was fired. Polis wouldn't have been able to get his shield in the way in time, but he could swing the axe just as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hadn't given him time to activate Vex Armor, so my Euphona Prime would deal serious damage, while his Ack would probably wipe my halo and shields, but wouldn't be able to kill me. I had won by the skin of my teeth.

I had taken to sparring with a couple of the others, just to pass time and keep ourselves warmed up in case Teli came back with locations of sentient drones or other unforeseen threat. If it was anyone other than Matariel I could pull out a win about seven times out of ten. Four if it was two versus one. I had already sparred with Sidon and Theris, though Theris' was more training than entertainment. Sidon's fight was a rather sound defeat, since most of his powers weren't to be used unless there was lethal intent. He needs to work on his non void-based combat. If we get back I'll make sure to send him on more energy reduction missions.

"Tenno, we have successfully recreated the tear. Sending your orbiters through momentarily. I've also designated a reclaimed orokin ship be sent through as well to serve as housing for any utilities not able to fit on your current ships."

All four of us perked up when the Lotus started speaking, and by the end of her first sentence we were sprinting down the white halls heading toward the designated landing site.

"I've sent the Lotus the precise location of the pad, the ships should be in sight momentarily." Siren said over the comms. Matariel and Gemma joined the four of us and we looked out at the Luan landscape.

Then a sound like God tearing one of the scrolls of the apocalypse blasted out just above our heads. Everyone flinched as over our heads a series of orbiters made their stately way through the hole in the universe. The large orbiter vessels glided forward and out of the way of the portal to make way for the orokin support ship. As they did, the Lotus addressed us again. "This ship is to serve as a repository for resources and information you collect while you are here. Cephalon Simaris has contributed an information storage system and a weave extention. The only way you were able to contact me in the first place was by piggybacking on your somatic links. Now that your orbiters are with you that will no longer be possible. You'll have to rely on the support ship for communication with our universe. Protect it."

"Will do." The Lotus never acknowledged anything like that, but I still said it to see if I could change that. No dice this time.

"Tenno." This time it was Simaris that addressed us. "I have detected a sizable information network on the planet as well as three different sites with unusual energy signatures. Find them and scan them for me so that I may expand the knowledge of the sanctuary. I have already consulted with your Lotus and she has allowed me to give you an expanded repertoire of missions due to my superior ability to identify targets of interest. Do this, and we will all benefit."

I sighed to myself. AIs and their tendency to be long winded was irritating almost all of the time, unless they were giving information on something.

"One more thing." Simaris continued. "The information network of this new Earth will require a special uplink to be placed on the planet to facilitate information transfer. I would have one of you go down to the planet along with the investigation of the points of interest and install it."

"Understood." Matariel said. "I'm electing myself, Teli, and Rain to investigate the sites, and Gemma will go install the uplink. I want Siren on the more complicated end to take care of anything that needs doing up here. Simaris, can you give me the locations?"

"I am transferring them now."

"Thank you. Send information on the uplink device to Gemma directly." As Matariel spoke I watched the orbiters ease into a circling pattern around the tower. They could not land by themselves, so the the landing craft would be the only things touching down. My scimitar was already on an approach vector, so I walked to the edge of the platform and got ready to be picked up. I saw Teli and Matariel doing the same. Gemma would follow soon after, once the device equipment has been moved to her ship.

Once our landing craft docked with the orbiters, Matariel began the briefing over comms. "Simaris has given us three locations to look into, these energy traces are well outside what is currently considered the norm for these people. I hate making this many assumptions, but…"

"What is risk when a tree might not be a tree?" I said. It was a saying that I had learned before the long night, the only thing I had remembered. It was what motivated me to get moving again, and the many varieties of situations it applied to in a new world made realize why I had remembered it.

"Exactly." Matariel continued. "The three sites are as such: one lies on the surface of the ocean, likely a seagoing vessel of some sort. The second and third are both underground, one situated on a highly populated island closely situated to its mainland and the other much farther inland on a different continent. Any preferences?"

I thought for a moment. "Give me the island." I said. Moments later the location showed up on my HUD. Getting to know what kind of population lived on this Earth would be a good idea, since either Siren or I were the most likely candidates for contact, considering my personality and her people reading skills.

"Ship." Teli said.

"Ok then. As soon as Gemma is ready we depart."

* * *

As I snuck through the underground base, one thing was very apparent. They did not want to be found, and they had tried their damndest to make sure they weren't.

Oh well.

I found an alcove and refreshed my invisibility. The base wasn't that large, but avoiding people was still rather easy considering. I came across a large room with an area sectioned off via heavy plastic drapes. A man sat nearby. He held a golden spear in his hand, with a beautiful blue gem set in the head.

"Tenno, the anomaly I sent you to investigate was inside the cordon. However, now that you are closer I can see that there were in fact two signals here. That spear is the other. Investigate them both." Simaris spoke in my ear.

I did not give an affirmative, only brought out my synthesis scanner and looked through the barrier.

 _They appear to be constructing a device of some sort. Simaris should be able to determine its function with a few more scans and time to analyze._

I turned toward the sitting man. Zooming in on the spear, I scanned it. The design was not unlike orokin, but there were clear differences. The gem however, was quite interesting in that I couldn't scan it. _I guess I'll leave that for later. Simaris is going to have a field day with what I have already._ The man rose, breaking me out of my thoughts. He moved to speak with a man inside the drapes and another outside. I could tell from the outside man's stance he was a warrior. I moved closer to hear.

"... need a distraction. And an eyeball." Hmm, the warrior used a bow and arrow. Teli would be intrigued, considering most of the weapons I've seen were guns. I could tell they were getting ready for a mission, and I prepared to follow them.

"Ivara to Loki, I am on the bridge of the sea going vessel. It is an aircraft carrying ship. The one in charge appears to be searching for someone of considerable danger. I'm send you a visual… now." I an image appeared on my HUD. A picture of the man standing before me.

This just got interesting.

"I'm actually standing about 5 feet from the man in that picture. Continue to monitor from your end. I will follow this one."

"..."

"There's something else?" I asked.

"...He is not human."

"Oh. I'll be more careful then. Over And out." They were leaving. So was I.

* * *

High above the city, I listened to Matariel and Teli converse. I hadn't changed to a stealth frame so I had to wait until night to do my sneaking, relying on my shade to pick up the slack. I saw some dark clouds coming closer and twitched In memory of the acid rains on our Earth. They probably weren't toxic here, and the darkness they provided would move my schedule up, but until then, penumbra it was. I could use teleport to move around, but I couldn't activate the thrusters without shutting down the cloak. I had arrived at the location, but the tower was too well lit for me to sneak in. Which left me with a predicament. I crossed my arms in contemplation. I stood there in mid air, wondering, when a small figure went swinging by underneath me. He seemed to be moving with purpose, and a string system reminiscent of a Valkyr's ripline. Definitely worth looking at, considering these humans' normal mode of transport were strange combustion vehicles that couldn't fly apparently, despite number of flying craft that dotted the sky. I followed him, careful not to lose track of him among the tall buildings. After nearly losing him a second time I saw him dive into an alley. The sky was sufficiently dark due to clouds so I decided to finally drop too.

Crouching on the edge of one of the alley buildings I watched the boy attempt to stop what appeared to be a robbery.

I liked him already. He was holding his own too, far be it from me to judge by size, but he was holding his own quite well, even when he did take a punch he got right back up again. Then he did something interesting. One of the robbers brought out what looked like a vasto and pointed it at the boy. The boy obviously couldn't see the gun, but he dodged the bullet anyway.

 _That was not a coincidence._ I thought. By now the boy had dispatched the goons and was helping the old lady on her way. I smiled to myself. If this kid could sense dangerous intent…

* * *

What a kind old lady. I thought as I webbed up the goons for the police to grab later. I was just about to swing away when my spidey sense exploded. I clutched my head in pain, tunnel vision making it hard to see.

Then it was gone.

I got up off my knees -when did I go down?- looked around warily for the threat. The tingling receded to a persistent throbbing in the back of my mind. I looked up at the clouds, heavy with rain. When I looked back down, a figure stood between me and the street. I knew instantly that this was the source of the danger. I could see well despite the dark sky due to my enhanced vision, and what I saw was unearthly. It's face was a blank semi-featureless mask with no eyes, nose or mouth. On either side of its head here two rings of some kind with two long flat cords draped freely down over its shoulders. On its back hung a huge ring. Rings also adorned his legs and elbows. A strange squid like thing floated over one shoulder. It tilted it head and I flinched. We continued to stare at each other. Me on edge, it affecting a relaxed posture with one hand dangling and the other on its hip. Something that could put out that much lethal intent couldn't be friendly. I readied for a fight.

It -I think it's a he- saw this and began waving its hands in front of him in an unmistakable gesture that said 'wait that's not what I meant'. I ignored him and started rushing forward, thinking that I had to take this dangerous character out. He cocked his head, like he was listening to something.

Then I hit the wall. Probably got a concussion. I staggered to my feet. Definitely going to feel that tomorrow. I thought. Shakily I looked at the newcomer.

The dude was holding up a peace sign. With the body posture that meant he was serious. Through my blooming headache I reassessed the thing before me. I decided to ask it.

"Who-" I swallowed down whatever food was coming back up for a visit. "Who are you?" Despite it having no eyes I saw it's entire attention focussed on me. It stiffened, then approached me. It kept both hands up where I could see them in a placating gesture. It glanced at the sky (was it nervous?) and when it was close enough tried to place a hand on my shoulder. I shied away and tripped over my own feet, landing hard. Holy crap that thing hit hard. What kind of power does he have? Then it began to rain.

Wonderful.

* * *

"Sign of peace my ASS Equinox. He did not take it that way."

"Oh. Apparently it has a joke connotation."

"The HELL woman? Gah." I sighed. The kid had charged me so I smacked him into the wall with my ferrox and-

Oh. I think I hit him too hard.

The boy tried to ask me something, nearly vomited, then successfully asked me who I was. I couldn't understand the language, but the meaning was clear enough. He was definitely worse for wear after that hit though. I went to go see if I could help but he shied away and tripped. I laughed to myself. Then it began to rain.

Wonderful.

Common sense dictated that no living thing should stay out in the rain, especially when injured, so I stepped over to where he fell and picked him up by the arm and helped him walk over to a nearby overhang and out of the downpour. I sat down next to him. I collected my thoughts and he seemed to do the same. I looked out at the rain again. The obvious starting point here would be to use the weather to inform the boy what my name is, but where from there? How does one build a Rosetta Stone out of one word? They boy was watching me warily. He still looked a bit woozy, but he was recovering. Time to start overcoming the language gap. I made sure he was looking at me. I pointed to the rain, then to myself hoping to convey that that was my name. He responded with a one word question.

"Gemma, what's the gesture for repeat?"

"Twirl your index finger horizontally."

I did so and he said the word again. He said more words, then made a sort of writing gesture. He seemed to realize there was a language gap here. I nodded, hoping he would produce some sort of writing utensil, but he got up and waved for me to follow him. He fired his ripline thing and whizzed off into the storm. I quickly matched his pace by running along the sides of the many buildings. Watching him seem to fly through the rain was almost mesmerizing, but eventually we made it to where he was going. Another back alley, where he had hidden a few things. Keeping carefully out of the rain, he pulled out a small stick and flat sheet of something white. I was only able to recognize them as pencil and paper because of Matariel's penchant for reading those old solid codexes that he collected.

"Oy Mat," I said to the Loki savant. "I need you over here, my investigation point is too well lit for shade or huras to work."

"Why didn't you bring a stealth frame?"

"Reasons. Also, I made a friend. He punches bad people. And does ripline."

"Good friend, or bad friend?" the Loki asked.

"Good. I've started a Rosetta stone."

"...Fine I'm on my way."

The red and blue dressed human offered the writing things up to me. It took me a second to recall the language lessons from before the long night, but I did remember the symbols for my name.

I showed the boy the paper and he looked at me without comprehension. I pointed to the rain and made the 'repeat' gesture once again. He seemed to catch on. He pointed at the rain and down at the word, saying it. I made the repeat gesture, but slowed it down considerably, he repeated the word slowly and I pointed to the letters as he said them. I then pointed at nearby objects and repeated the process. After a while something became abundantly clear. Our written language was almost identical to their spoken, but our vocal language was severely abbreviated. Which made sense, considering the lower classes in the orokin empire were horribly overworked and thus could only manage short conversations at a time. This Earth's language was likely a form of orokin. When I got back to base I'd have to brush up on how the translation works. I flipped over the page and quickly scrawled out all 34 letters of our alphabet. Leaving a space for a counterpart symbol I handed the page back to the other boy, who put a corresponding note under each letter, presumably their equivalents.

They boy grabbed another page out of his bag and slowly started to write something down.

(I think Ive got it figured out your written language is phonetic meaning that the letters correspond to only one sound but other than that its almost identical to English thats our language)

I cringed at his punctuation and bad handwriting. I nodded my head and grabbed the paper from him, adding proper punctuation and handing it back. Pointing out the mistakes as I did. He simply nodded, now that he was recovered from the strike it registered how easily he managed to catch on, given the circumstances.

 _Considering these humans are indescribably less developed than the orokin, he still managed to grasp this this quickly. He must be incredibly smart._

"You know, Equinox and Simaris already have about half the languages on this 'internet' translated right?" Matariel decloaked directly beside me.

The red and clad human almost jumped out of his suit, but I didn't pay attention to him. "Let me have my smart person moment dammit." Matariel just made a raspberry in response. "This your human?" He asked.

"Yes, this is my human, and I have named him Quirky and he shall be my Quirky and- NO I do not have a crush on him you twit. Your target is the big building with the letters. The signature came from underground, probably some kind of energy generator. Go do things." I waved at him dismissively. He chuckled at my obvious lie and vanished. A couple of soft taps on a nearby wall and he was gone.

"Equinox. Send me the translation data."

"Understood." She deadpanned.

* * *

I watched the two alien beings converse. They weren't saying anything, but they were obviously discussing something embarrassing for the ringed one (Rain?). Then the horned one vanished, the not-so-slight buzz of my spider sense that came with it gone a moment later. The alien gestured for the paper, which I handed over readily, and began to write. After a couple of seconds it turned the page back to me.

(My team has your language fully translated. But they didn't tell me until AFTER we had made the translation page. I hate people sometimes. Long story short I can understand your words now.)

I took a moment to read it and laughed. "Alright, well now that I can get my point across. "Who are you people and what are you doing here?"

(I am named Rain. We are tenno. I was here to investigate an irregular energy signature coming from that STARK tower.)

Tenno? "What's a tenno?"

(I am not at liberty to tell you. Suffice it to say we are warriors crafted to fight a very powerful enemy.)

That I could believe. "Mr. Stark I think was activating his tower's arc reactor today, supposedly it's a source of clean energy or something."

(Sounds interesting, what is it that you are wearing? That does not appear to be normal garb around here, far be it from me to judge.)

"Oh this?" I looked down at my suit. "I made it so that people wouldn't recognise me. If people knew my real identity the people I care about might get hurt. The goggles are so that I have an easier time seeing since my eyes are way more sensitive than normal."

(You are not normal?)

"Yeah! I have superpowers! I'm super fast, super strong, I ... stick to...walls..." I trailed off, realizing that to this being my strength and speed were probably average, if not sub par to this creature. He could even run on walls faster than I could. It started writing again.

(Wait, if I had hit an average person like I hit you?)

Oh. I saw what he was getting at. "Yeah, that probably would have killed them."

(I think the human term is 'well shit'.)

"Yeah...yeah." I was starting to get a clue about this being's personality, and it was surprisingly… human, in a way. "Who was the other guy?"

(Loki. Stealth expert. Excels at hacking and analysis. I usually win six duels out of ten, he's the remaining four.)

"Speaking of, I'm kinda… new to this whole crime fighting thing. Would you mind showing me a thing or two? You obviously know a lot about combat and need all the help I can get…" I nervously rubbed the back of my neck.

(No.)

"May I ask why?"

(Too lethal. I know what kind of military might your planet can bring to bear. Some of us can withstand a direct hit from a nuclear warhead with very little preparation. You quite simply don't have the prowess.)

At the look on my face his posture softened.

(I will not teach you. But I can help you learn.)

I was about to question what he meant, but Rain's outstretched hand stopped me. He quickly scribbled something down.

(I must go.)

"Why though?"

(Shit is about to hit the fan. Stay down, stay out of this. I will find you if I want you for anything.)

"But what if I need you first?"

(Find Simaris.)

And with that a pair of huge twin engines swooped down out of the sky, picked Rain up and with the pop of displaced air, was gone.

* * *

AN: Second chapter done. Show of hands, who expected Spiderman this early? I kind of have a bit of a fixation with Tom Holland. So Spiderman is going to get a bit of partial treatment, sorry. Followup thought: Uploading at 1:30 in the morning is WEIRD.


	4. Raining on Someone's Parade

I am going to have _words_ with Rain once we get back to Lua. Freaking calling me off of tailing those guys to go do his mission for him. Who does he think he is? What kind of idiot doesn't bring a _stealth frame_ on a _stealth mission_? Once inside the Stark tower I easily made it down to the power source, but that was all it was. What was more interesting was this so called 'Iron Man' that was housed here. I made my way up there and -speak of the devil- the guy _launches_ moments after I get there to go off on some mission. Which turned out to be to go get the guy that I was tracking originally.

Not my day.

Teli told me that they would be returning to their flying boat (which by the way, why a flying boat?) Once they got him. So here Teli and I were, in one of her invisibility bubbles, on a tree, watching Iron Man and the apparent god of thunder go at it hammer and tongs suit. It was interesting watching how they fought though. That hammer seemed to be variable in mass, which was an idea that I had been toying with for some time. The manipulation of lightning was rather dull though, any Volt could have done better.

I got a couple of scans for Simaris in of the green dressed guy on the cliff before turning back to the fight. Just in time to see the thunder guy bring his hammer down on Red-White-and-Blue's shield. Teli and were just outside the blast radius, so meh. Teli had her vectis prime out for its scope and we both saw that they were finally done fighting.

"Geez, they were on the same side the whole time? Why fight then?" I asked out loud.

Teli just shrugged. "Misunderstanding?"

"Bah. Look, they're loading up. Time for us to do the same." We both called down our landing craft and followed their strike craft back to their- Helicarrier was it? Once there we instructed our ship cephalons to maintain alert status and hold position near the Helicarrier and ID any extraction points should they be needed.

...

I looked over at Teli from where I was sitting among the rafters on the ship's bridge. The Ivara savant was looking at where the green clad alien and his entourage of guards had disappeared. I knew that look. Warframes have no face, but they definitely are able to show the expressions of their masters. "What is it?" I asked her.

"He wants to be here."

"Really, I couldn't tell."

"He is Loki."

"So am I." I said.

"No. You are _a_ Loki. He _is_ Loki."

"Trickster gods both. You suspect fowl play."

She nodded and looked at me expectantly. I nodded back and waved her off. She soundlessly went to go find where they were stowing the prisoner. I tuned back into the conversation.

"...It's about the mechanics, what do they need the Iridium for?" One of the men was saying. I was about to ask Simaris what Iridium was when the Tony Stark guy walked in on the conversation.

"It's a stabilizing agent." he went on to make an ass of himself. Strutting around the place like he owned it. I didn't miss, however, that he placed something on one of the consoles. I pulled out my scanner and used it on the tiny device.

"Yo Coroneer," I addressed my ship cephalon. "Simaris set you up with the wireless stuff yet?"

"Yes, operator. I am now equipped with access to the - **PUTRID CANCEROUS-** network of knowledge these humans use."

"Good. Piggyback on whatever that device I just scanned is doing."

"Understood."

Stark was talking to the iridium guy. Said something about an enormous green rage monster that had me intrigued for a second, but then they started walking away and I lost it again.

"Equinox to Loki."

I perked up. "Go ahead." I told her.

"The Simaris com relay may or may not have been discovered."

"How so?" I asked.

"There is currently one of those strike craft that the SHIELD organization uses heading this way. Any ideas on-"

"TENNO, do not lose this relay, I must have it to expand the sanctuary." Simaris butted in. I inwardly shook my head. "Equinox, can you bring it down quietly and non-lethally?"

"Shouldn't be terribly difficult, but they will very easily be able to see me before they are in range."

 _Not good._ I thought. _They will definitely report it in time. This ship is definitely high in the command chain, so likely the report will come straight here._ "Loki to Bashee. Mobilize, come to my location at speed. Make it flashy."

"Got it."

No sooner had she said that than the lieutenant on deck shouted for the eye patch guy.

"Commander, a quinjet just reported in something you should see." The man moved quickly over. After checking the screen he swore to himself. "What in hell is that thing? Destroy it." There was the sound of a round being loosed. "Sir, I fired, but the bullet just seemed to… lose it punch before it hit the target. No damage."

"Shoot it again, soldier." The eye patch guy ordered. Another round, same result. Commander Eyepatch swore again.

While this went on I contacted both Teli and Rain and told them to rendezvous here as quickly as possible. I then contacted Simaris.

"Loki to Simaris. You're going to have to do the explaining. You ordered the installation made."

"Very well. Contacting now…"

* * *

I was about to pry open the door to the storage area when the lights suddenly changed and an alarm started buzzing. I hadn't been on this ship long, but I had picked up that this meant something was going on.

 _Shelve the suspicion for now, Steve. Go find out if there's anything I can do to help._

I began jogging back to the bridge, passing several dozen guards fully armed and armored for a fight. I picked up my pace.

If I hadn't payed up on that bet with Fury before, I would have now. Two dozen guards stood pointing their guns at the strangest creature I had yet seen. It was gaunt and wiry, easily over six feet tall with what appeared to be pale grey with deep orange highlighted armor. Two horns tapered from either side of its head out and back, making it look like some sort of demon. Surrounding it, on every screen in the room, was an abstract image of a series of yellow trapezoids that vibrated in time with the voice that was booming out over the speakers.

"...My intentions are non hostile, but that will change if you continue to fire upon my structure. We have played our hand in an attempt to maintain a non-violent relation. If you maintain a hostile stance we will defend ourselves and you will end off worse for it." Fury's expression was intense, whether angry or neutral I couldn't tell. Thor had his hammer ready and seemed itching to use it.

"You install a foreign machine on our soil, infiltrate our most powerful and secure warship, and brush past our firewall like it was made of tissue paper and on top of that you threaten us!? Do you really think you can declare yourself non-hostile after that?"

"I am solely concerned with documentation and the expansion of the Sanctuary. Anything that does not threaten the Sanctuary is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant my ASS. If you want to be considered a friend on this world you observe common courtesy. No exceptions."

The shapes on the screen paused for a moment."... Your argument would hold more weight if you humans observed what you ask. One of your kind has already breached your security. As it was, the entrance into your system was more like crossing a line drawn on the floor than opening a door in a wall." Fury seemed taken aback by this and took a moment to formulate a reply.

"Alright, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot here. Let's start from the beginning again. Who was it you said you are? And what-who is this thing standing before us?"

The lights on the screen seemed to lift up and prepare to deliver a scripted speech. "I am Simaris. Cephalon in charge of guarding, maintaining and expanding the Sanctuary, a repository for any and all knowledge. The being you see before you is a warframe known as Loki. Named, I suspect, after our world's equivalent to the being you hold captive in that 'steel trap', as you called it. We are here because-" I almost misses it but the… thing standing in the middle of the room stiffen just before the light being cut off what he was saying. "...It would be best if they explained it themselves. Another is on its way here, she will be able to speak in a more diplomatic way. I will leave your systems intact as a sign of goodwill, and remove this… _intruder_ , whom I suspect is not supposed to be here. Farewell." The geometric being disappeared from the computer screens. Leaving only the warframe standing on the table. Silence reigned over the room until out the window I spotted a bright blue flash. Everyone turned to look out the window at the small ship on an approach vector. I walked around the edge of the room toward the huge glass wall, a step behind Director Fury. From what I could see it had the shape of an arrowhead, with two large tails trailing behind it.

The ship made a few passes, obviously waiting for permission to land, and Fury gave the all clear over the Helicarrier's comm system to begin landing procedure. He then disappeared down the hall, presumably to meet whoever was landing in person. He passed Tony Stark, who was standing in the other door with a vacant look on his face. The spitting image of a child who had been denied dessert before dinner. I walked over to him, warily eyeing the warframe as I did. One look from Tony told me everything he wanted to say, but he was going to say it anyway.

"It brushed Jarvis aside. Whatever that Simaris thing is he brushed the most powerful AI I've ever created aside like a spiderweb. I want to know what that thing is. I tried to send Jarvis after it but he came back almost immediately warning of critical system failures. Metaphorically speaking, the air Simaris breathes is toxic to artificial intelligence."

"And yet there he is."

"Exactly."

We paused when all the guards in the room twitched, but it was just the warframe shifting to a kneeling position. I turned back to Tony, who had continued muttering to himself. Seeming to come to a conclusion, he said. "No offense Cap, but you're not the kind of person to talk about this sort of thing with. I'm going back to the lab. Go… do Cap things." I raised an eyebrow but he ignored me and left.

* * *

I watched the two men talk about Simaris' antics and smiled to myself. _If these people didn't even understand the difference between something like the Weave and digital space, they have a long way to go._

"Alright, I just stepped off the ramp, when do I speak?" Siren asked.

"Hmm. Wait till we have privacy. The masses must still believe we are 'mute peasants' as the Salad says. Plus I'm willing to bet that Mr. Fury here doesn't want our communique to be in public either." I told the Banshee. "When you arrive, we'll do a truth handshake. And then follow my lead from there."

"Gotcha."

Without turning my head I took note of every soldier in the room. I saw the way they held their weapons and estimated their reaction times accordingly. This Captain America fellow would prove the most difficult here, maybe, that Thor guy might cause an issue if he managed to get a hit in, but this is _me_ we're talking about. Offhandedly I wondered how a Loki's disarm would work on it. Speaking of, Thor was approaching me from behind.

"Oy, war-man. You are a warrior, no?" I nodded, not bothering to stand up. "What was your purpose coming to this planet?" This time I did stand, turning my head and pointedly showing my lack of mouth.

"We've already established that he cannot speak, Thor." Captain America butted in. "One of them who can is currently on the ship and coming here now." The Captain continued speaking, but Teli interrupted over comms.

"Am here." There was an implied question in her tone.

"Stay hidden, we'll give them a scare if need be."

She didn't respond, but I knew she understood. A moment later I saw the faint outline of a void based cloak slowly simmer by and come to rest where the fewest number of people were looking.

A few moments later a group of soldiers, Nick Fury, and Siren came into the room. She paused, noting as I had that only the captain, and Thor were the real threats. I turned to her, making 'eye contact'. Adopting the body language of long term friends and quickly approached each other and locked our arms, forming an x with our forearms and rotating them to make a t. I sensed the eyes of everyone in the room on us. I turned to Fury expectantly. He gestured down the hall and we followed him and his guards. I took a queue from Siren an allowed my Loki's feet to clank on the metal flooring.

Soon we approached a door, behind which was what obviously passed for a conference room for these people. It was a far cry from the hardlight projections and golden rings, but the feeling about the room was nearly identical.

Siren took one look at large table in the center of the room and gasped over void comms. "It's real wood of a kind we haven't seen. Their Earth is yet green and blue." The humans had all taken seats, a woman with copper hair strode in and took a seat moments later. Teli entered after us and again positioned herself where no one was looking.

Fury gave us a serious expression and asked "You said... " He looked Siren up and down. "...She, would be able to communicate better. So tell us, who or what are you and what are you doing here?" Siren held out her hands as if inviting a small bird to land on it. I felt a pulse of void energy and two lights appeared over her hand, one of which she passed to me.

"Tenno, they are attempting to block communications. It won't affect us. They are also attempting to gather large amounts of data by observing what goes on during the meeting. Proceed with caution."

I acknowledged the Lotus' warning and felt Siren do the same. Then the light she was holding pulsed, and she spoke through it to the assembled group. "We are warframes." She said.

"And what is a warframe, exactly?" Thor asked.

"Our creator spoke as such:" Siren responded, before switching to that lilted voice that belonged to Ballas.

"These like-faced savages, these earth-worn mules, a vast violent ocean at our command. Yet they wither. Mired in massed steel and flesh, casting these hordes from gene molds and flock minds, we inspire nothing. Our demons of void womb must be different. Unusual. Singular. Crafted without caste, wrought of the finest ore, slender and queer.

Sight without eye. Wrath without sound. Not a soldier, but a myth. Not a warrior... a spirit.

So we were called. And so we are." She concluded.

The red haired woman spoke up. "What do you mean 'were'?"

I spoke up. "After the Long Night we had come to be known as betrayers and scum by our enemies and treated as trained wild animals by our allies." My voice had an odd resonance coming out of the light Siren had handed me. "Since then we've- hold on." I took my hand away from the void light so that my voice wouldn't project. Rain was approaching at high speed, judging by the movement, he was using his Iztal's teleportation. He would be here within seconds.

"Nezha, you NOT need to crack the ship like a nut. We have everything under control. Go backup Equinox. That being said, Chroma, I want you and Inaros on standby just in case. Chroma, you will back us up if need be. Inaros will back up Equinox and Nezha." Part of the void communication consisted of a sort of emotional projection, which allowed for much more nuanced and precise communication. It was through this I sensed Theris' displeasure at being left to defend the tower. He would have to deal with it for now.

Siren tactfully hadn't said anything about the exchange, and was simply waiting for me to finish. The humans in the room, however, weren't so patient. The woman spoke again.

"How many of you are there? It's obvious you're communicating with someone. And I doubt you have any human contact, we'd have heard about it."

"More importantly, how are you doing it without us being able to detect it?" Stark entered the room with a flourish.

I unhurriedly returned my hand to the floating void light. "Your discovery of us sent two of us into a panic. One restrained himself and the other, already on planet at the time, immediately rushed over here. I assumed that having a valuable ship such as this cracked open like an egg would not help our standing, so I called him off." Ignoring their expressions I continued. "To answer your question ma'am, inasmuch as active units, there are eight of us here. To answer _your_ question sir, is difficult. It involves a kind of dimension that is yet unknown to you. Explanation is impossible because both your knowledge in general and my knowledge on the subject is not enough."

Siren chimed in. "Plus, we aren't even allies yet. Why should we even tell you this much?" Whatever the humans' answer was, it was interrupted by a distant explosion that sent a shudder through the ship. Fury's hand immediately went to his earpiece. He immediately stood. "Suit up now. We are under attack!"

"Permission to mobilize?" I asked. Fury looked at me. "Permission granted."

"Exterminate or capture?" the followup question seemed to catch him off guard.

"Sir," the woman said. "If they're here for Loki Bart might be with them." Fury looked at me again. "Capture them alive if possible." I nodded. Siren dissipated the void speaker lights and turned to me. I nodded again and all three of us bolted from the room at top speed. Leaving the humans scrambling to fulfill whatever their plans were.

Polis had sensed our tension rise and was already blazing toward the earth in a scimitar landing craft. He would be here in under a minute. I began issuing commands. "Coroneer, patch me into the commander's earpiece, apply a vocal filter. Banshee, go check the damage, if there's anything we can do I don't want to have to relay it through other people. Ivara, secure the bridge. I'm going loose." I started heading up. "Squad two I want you up and out. Maintain ready stance." I found an air vent and vanished into it. As I moved through the ductwork I heard the crew running around trying to get the ship working again.

' _No wonder we were never given capital ships. The manpower involved in keeping them running effectively is too much even for us.'_ I thought to myself.

* * *

"Stark! Stark I'm here!" I shouted to be heard over the rushing wind.

"Good, let's see what we got." Here he started muttering something scientific which I had no grasp of. He looked over at me. "I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position." Stark then flew into the machinery, leaving me to figure out a way to get there. A few tricky jumps and I was there. I opened the panel.

Um.

"What's it look like in there?" Stark asked.

 _Hell if I know._ "It appears to run on some form of electricity."

"Tell him 1,2,5,8, and 12." I flinched and looked over my shoulder, the female warframe from earlier stood directly behind me, head twitching around as if seeing through the walls at the tech that resided there. She had strange looking rifle gripped loosely in one hand. I didn't have time to wonder where she got it as I relayed the numbers. A distant roar echoed through the ship, followed by what might have been metal shredding.

The warrior addressed me again. "You guard. I'll help fix this. Then suddenly everything went quiet. _Silent_. Where once there had been tearing wind, now there was quietly trickling air. I heard the warrior's footsteps as she approached the console. I stepped away and towards the door to the interior of the ship. I could hear my own _heartbeat_ for crying out loud. Another pulse of something blew past me, but it didn't seem to do anything. I took up a position to watch the halls as they got to work.

A loud _CLANG_ made me glance back. Another warframe, the one who called himself Loki had landed on one of the nearby bulkheads. It had a huge pair of wing like appendages that looked like they were growing from its lower back. It looked at the female warframe, who looked back. After a brief moment they resumed their tasks, whatever they were. The Loki crawled among the torn bits of the ship, examining different bits at random.

Another of those strange pulses. Only this time, multiple strange lights appeared and began moving on the walls. I tried to blink them away but to no avail.

"Your eye are not playing tricks on you. Those are hostiles. They will be here in moments." The female warframe spoke to me, somehow not breaking the silence. I readied myself. "Aim for the spots. They will go down faster that way. Here, catch." She continued, throwing her rifle at me before turning back to her work. I caught it. On closer inspection, the thing was most certainly seemed bolt action, but there was no magazine or anything. I experimentally brought it to my shoulder and aimed. Soon enough one of the spots rounded the corner and I fired.

I expected the recoil. It wasn't too bad for a gun this size. I was not, however, expecting a second round. The second shot nearly made me lose my grip. I recovered quickly, prepared myself again and started firing. As they rounded the corner I put rounds where ever the spot was located and they went down with the first bullet. If I missed the dot, the second round finished them off. It was almost enjoyable, if I wasn't firing at people who were attempting to kill me.

"Captain, Stark, this is Fury. Thor and another warframe have engaged the hulk."

"Do they need any help?" I asked over radio.

"If anyone it's the hulk that needs help, if witnesses are to be believed. I need you to help kick the rest of these idiots off the ship. Stark! That engine up and running yet?"

"You've got monitors on that bridge right? You can ask them." Stark said.

"Bart hit us with a virus and everything is down up here. Get that engine up and running stat!"

"Working on it. Alright ma'am I'm gonna need you to hold that lever so I can get out once the fan gets going." I saw the warframe nod and move. She caught my questioning gaze and waved me off. "Keep it for now. Give it back when you're done." She said. I turned and started down the hallways, meeting up with a couple guards and accompanying them through the ship. Taking care of any hostiles we came across.

* * *

AN Time: I planned on uploading this a couple of days ago but my hard drive died. So now I'm running two and everything is good.

Before we get farther into the story, I have actually written up into Winter soldier, with a couple of mini-arcs in between. Current plans is Avengers then Winter Soldier then Ultron then Civil War then Homecoming then whatever happens after. I will also be inserting smaller story arcs and characters from other movies that I'm not fully going through in between each movie because I can. They will be more focused on the Avengers dealing with the Tenno and their nonsense.

Comment Responses:

Guest: Thanks! I'd been making a point to steer away from those kinds of stories because I just didn't find them interesting.

Helkil: I plan on going all the way through Infinity War, and like I said I'm writing Winter Soldier right now, and will be writing through any movies in between I like. On the subject of Rain, he is male, but whether he is gay or not is actually related to plot and will be addressed later. So you'll have to read and find out. :P


	5. A Seed of War Destroyed

AN: This Chapter was kind of the seed for this whole endeavor. Interestingly, it's not the longest chapter, nor do I feel the greatest about it's execution. I will very likely be revisiting this at some point and rewriting the crap out of it. I had meant to post this a couple of days earlier than I did, but Thanksgiving is a thing. Since this is a short chapter I'm going to upload this and the next at the same time.

Important note: There was a song that provided inspiration. I heard it, listened to it for a long time, then BOOM! Warframes were running around New York fighting off Chitauri. So yeah. The song was Europa, from Globus' album Epicon. Go look it up, it's nice, and mildly relevant.

Speaking of relevance. Did anyone other than me notice how the prime warframe trailers kind of match up with some of the movies? Banshee's is a bit of a stretch but it introduces the concept of warframes to the audience. Then you have Nekros', which lines up with both Winter Soldier AND Civil War quite nicely. And then... Vauban's lines up with Spiderman. I don't need to say anything else on that end.

ANYWAY. Like, follow, review, whatever it is you do on this website.

* * *

Not a half hour later we were collected on the bridge. Counting our losses.

Fury slowly approached the table. He pulled out a couple of small rectangles of paper-like substance. "These were in Agent Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them." Fury threw the plastic rectangles onto the table. "We're dead in the air here. Communications, location of the cube, Banner gone." He started to walk again. "...There was an idea, Stark knows this, called the Avengers initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people. See if they could become something more. To see if they could fight the battles we never could." I stood silently watching. Letting the humans get through their mourning process. I don't want to imagine what they are going through. Warframes don't die. Beyond that a tenno has never died so far as we're aware. Siren walked in and Captain America, I heard his real name was Steve over the comes, handed her back her Dex Sybaris. As she inspected it. Fury continued. "Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Stark abruptly stood up and left the room, clearly unable to keep his composure any longer. Siren finished her inspection and slipped the rifle back into its void pocket. The temporary slip in the laws of physics went unnoticed by everyone in the room. Polis stepped in a moment later. Everyone paused at the new face, but didn't much react past that. He went over and stood next to Teli, who kneeled a couple of paces behind me. Polis made sure to hold his body language as solemn. We gave them a respectful silence. After a while though the lack of activity started to itch so I asked Siren to summon a void speaker. "Where is the copper haired woman?" I addressed Fury.

"Black widow is currently attempting to snap one of our agents out of whatever mind control Loki's scepter placed on him."

Polis twitched. "Why don't we just do it with a Nyx? Wouldn't take half as long." I was relieved he hadn't used a projected speaker, so the humans couldn't hear this.

I stopped talking through the speaker long enough to reply. "These people pride themselves on secrets. Imagine what damage a mind reader would do to that sort of structure." I told him. Steve left the room while I was talking.

"Fury." I spoke aloud. "We intend on returning to our base of operations. You may use the relay we installed to contact us. This Loki fellow intends to act soon. That much I can guarantee. As of right now my group is not set up for a full scale battle. We must go. We will maintain a ready disposition until the battle opens."

Widow entered the room in a rush. "Bart says Loki plans on acting today." Fury turned and gave me a look. "Alright." He said. "Go do whatever it is you do to prepare. We'll scramble everything on our end." The four of us left at speed.

* * *

We were halfway to the moon when Cephalon Coroneer urgently spoke. "Operator! Some -IDIOT- has activated a portal above Stark tower! Detecting a multitude of unknown signatures."

Immediately my mind switched to war mode. "Designate them all as hostiles. I want three people in archwing at all times, two Odonatas and one Elytron. Everyone else get on the ground, priority is containment of hostile presence. I felt the affirmative and collective bloodlust well up within our void connection. Our ships swerved, elegantly avoiding each other and speeding back toward the ground. "Banshee, I want you, Inaros and Excalibur in the air." We sped on. I watched the number of hostiles count up. Including one large one that dissipated a minute later, only to be replaced by 4 more.

And then we were there. We all dropped out of our ships at speed and into our archwings. Hiding behind the shields of the Odonatas we made atmospheric entry at record speed. As the city came into focus we saw large serpentine forms swimming through the air, disgorging hundreds of infantry.

"Oh my god."

I saw where that was going and tried to stop on it. "I swear to god Nezha if you say anything I'm going to-"

"Space whales."

"DAMMIT Ivara!"

Rain swerved over to me. "Can we keep one?"

I sighed. "If you manage to catch one alive you deserve to keep it. Those are flying siege engines."

Teli emitted a quiet noise that somewhat sounded like a balloon losing air. They angled off, Teli to go meet up with that Hawkeye person and Rain to go… somewhere. Hell if I know. 100,000 credits say he's going to check on his pet human. Siren, Sandon and Theris formed up and began tearing through the hostile air force, missiles filling the air and not a one missing their mark. Three high yield warheads from an Elytron was all it took to nix one of the flying serpents. Polis, Gemma and I detached from our archwings above the tower, briefly noting their return to their respective ships before landing on the side of the tower and starting to run down the side. Using our ability of cling to walls we periodically stopped and shot down several down fliers as we went, before the power ran out and we were forced to jump to the ground. I quickly projected the image of my plan. We would quickly slaughter our way to the perimeter, then slowly work our way back into the center keeping the number of dead enemies to absolute maximum. We hit the ground and sprung into action. Gemma triggered maim and blazed off down one street, Polis animated his pelt amid a hail of fire and leapt from building to building, Telos Bolto blazing. I took another road, leaping from alien to alien, sticking the dark dagger into their necks and blocking their laser rounds with the dark sword. I activated my decoy and together we went to town. As I worked my way down the street I noticed a brawl was going on farther down the street. Leaping onto the side of a nearby building, I spotted Captain America in a melee with a group of aliens. I pulled out my aklex and quickly picked off the 4 nearest him, before going invisible and switching out with another nearby hostile.

Hacking into the Captain's headset, I said. "So who are these guys?"

He twitched and looked around. "They're called the Chitauri. Where are you?"

"About ten feet to your right." He turned to see a patch of air spouting bullets at a prodigious rate. I cast radial disarm, disabling all nearby weapons. My invisibility destabilized and I materialized before the bewildered Captain. Giving him a salute I returned to putting lead into chitauri skulls. Their armor wasn't that great, a single shot put them down quite handily. So I settled into that cathartic zen state of absolute slaughter of the combat impotent.

* * *

I don't think the Loki noticed, but I stopped and watched him for a while. It certainly never gave the enemies a chance to shoot at me. The warframe had the whole street nailed down with a sledgehammer. A term I heard quite often during World War two; putting the fear of God into the enemy. I think these warframes do that quite well. Half the time I couldn't even see him. Not because he turned invisible, but because he was moving faster than I could sprint, in the air, putting bullets in the heads of dozens of chitauri in the process. And he never got tired. Not a moment of pause. This guy, these people, were a force of nature on the battlefield I could never hope to be. I sighed and started to trudge back up the street.

Over the radio Barton told me of a group of civilians were trapped. I acknowledged and headed over. Once I made it in a mix of grappling, laser fire and a rather nasty grenade had me back out on the street with firemen helping get the people out of the building. I took a moment to look up, noting there were much fewer enemies in the sky. But more than that a fundamental change had occurred.

Our air force were the ones doing the chasing now. Except for around the huge flying creatures it was the Warframes and Tony chasing down stragglers, though near the tower many more were still pouring out. Distantly I heard the Hulk roar from the top of a building. One of the flying warframes flew by but came to a screeching halt above the Loki warframe. Losing a bunch of Chitauri fliers in the process but, judging from its posture, something more important was happening. I ran back over to them only to catch the Loki abandoning the ground fight in favor of his own pair of wings.

As the unfamiliar flier sped away the Loki stopped when he saw me. He barely paused long enough to say-

* * *

"Nuke."

"What!?" the Captain responded. Not for lack of comprehending, but for shock. I didn't stick around to find out how else he would respond. I blazed off in my Itzal, my accompanying drones following behind me slower than I would have liked.

Two burst teleports and I was high enough to see what was going on. Outside of the faint irritation that I actually had to worry about myself and a few of my clanmates. I didn't let anything else sway my actions. I had to put together a plan and fast. 'Everyone up in the air NOW.' was part one and partly a panic reaction. Now I had to make an actual plan. A brief glance at my clanmates' indicators showed three Odonatas, two Elytrons, an Itzal (me) and an Amesha. Distantly heard Stark start to say something. I looked over and saw Iron Man trying to _powerlift_ the freaking _nuke._

"Priority mission switched from exterminate to mobile defense. Protect Stark as he does something incredibly stupid and brave." I said over the void comm. Out of the corner of my eye I saw trails arcing into the sky, barely pausing to bisect any enemy flying chariots that got in their way. The two Elytrons, Sandon and Theris, aligned themselves and poured on speed to stay equal with the rocket. The Odonatas stationed themselves in front with shield walls up, cycling between castors to keep energy efficient. The Amesha (Gemma) held slightly back while I trailblazed. I reached the tower well before the group, only to be met by Black Widow sticking the Loki God's staff into some kind of crude torsion beam device that was making the portal. I didn't bother a graceful landing and swiftly pulled the spear back before she could protest and pointed at Iron man and the nuclear missile. She got the gist and made no move to stab the device again, but she did still hold it ready.

Lifting off the ground again I shot back over to the rocket, taking out more Chitauri as I went. No more giant serpents were flying through, so I assumed that was all there were. We were less than thirty seconds out. Tony was trying to push the thing up, but was failing. I signalled Gemma and we positioned ourselves on either side of the rocket. Taking only a moment to sync our outputs, we added our thrust to the mix.

The difference was immediate. We almost over compensated but corrected our trajectory quickly. We were in between buildings now, seconds away from the tower. The portal loomed overhead. Without needing a signal the three Odonatas boosted themselves and flew up through the portal with a hail of rocket fire. They took up positions around the far side, making way and making Chitauri make way.

Then we were through. The Elytrons were still ahead of us. Launching volley after volley of ordnance at the massive ship hovering in the distance. They peeled off, leaving only the three of us; Stark, me and Gemma. I expected Stark to let go after we had gone through, and he did. Considering he was technically faster than both Odonatas and Elytrons, I didn't think much of it. Maybe he could have stayed for longer, I didn't know. Gemma let go to race for the portal soon after. After a final adjustment, I did too.

When I turned around though, something was wrong. Tony was floating, not flying back. I put two and two together and realized how stupid he actually was.

I acted. Two teleports and I was in his face, I caught him in a sharp lariat and launched us both forward, the impact would have jarred my teeth, if a warframe had any, but getting back through was top priority. I heard them call to close the portal, and panicked. Getting left out here with a dead weight and a nuclear blast was a bad idea. I splurged on energy consumption, teleporting as fast as I could, unthinkingly triggering it more than I should have, coming out meet feet above the ground at full speed.

I didn't feel the landing.

* * *

I learned later that I bounced for three or four blocks before skidding to a stop. Stark had been caught mid air by the hulk after I let go of him. I was revived to the familiar presence of a clanmate. "Excalibur, thank you." Optical sensors came back online and I looked around at the crater I made.

"Thank Equinox, she snagged you with a swarm before you went down. Took most of the hit for you." The Excalibur wielder helped me up with a hand. My archwing had broken off and had flown back to the landing craft for repairs, not taking me with it. The arrow end of a dashwire hit the ground beside me, Teli and Hawkeye hit the ground a moment after. I gave them both a nod and we set off toward the rest of the group. I noted Rain had flown away again, and reminded myself to give him shit for it later. This pet project of his might get in the way, and that was unacceptable.

An incredibly loud roar startled all of the tenno in the area. I forced myself to lessen my grip on my aklex prime. _Just because it's loud like a juggernaut…_

Iron man was already back on his feet when we met up with him, the captain, Thor, and the hulk. Stark, turned to us, eyeing me in particular.

"I invited everyone out for some Shawarma after we go , I don't know if you guys do the whole food thing, but you can join us if you want."

I shook my head. Siren pulled up a void speaker and I said. "We have our own business to take care of. Go without us." I signaled for our landing craft to come retrieve us while the rest of the Avengers made their way back to Stark Tower, well, A Tower, now.

EDIT: I originally said that Europa was by Two Steps From Hell. This is wrong it's by Globus. This shows two things: One; I'm an idiot because I KNEW THAT and two; Globus is criminally unknown because they do good music and only after months of this story being up did someone tell me that I had miss-attributed the song.

In seriousness I always welcome people telling me if I goof up like that. Thanks Blueghast900. MVP.


	6. An Exceptional Spider

AN: Heyo, so as promised this goes up at the same time as the previous. This one is longer and involves stuff and things.

Reviews and stuff are appreciated and imparts impetus to my writing.

* * *

"Hey Loki?" I asked over a private channel.

"Nezha, I don't like that tone. What are about to do?"

"...Something stupid." I said sheepishly.

"That goes without saying. What _specifically_ are you going to do?"

"I'm going to help train a human."

"What." It wasn't a question.

"He asked, and before you say anything else no I am NOT going to teach him how to fight like how we were taught. I'm going to coach him in improving his own fighting style."

I felt his resignation before he even said anything. "One more question. Is he worth it?"

"Yes. I do believe he is." I told him.

"...Fine. But under no circumstances reveal the second dream to him."

"Ehem, blatant subject shift. Should we tell this Fury guy?" I asked.

"I will be meditating on it with Banshee and Equinox."

It only took me a moment to figure out my opinion. "I say tell him."

"Go play with your pet." The Loki said dismissively.

I flew to where I had left him, helping with the evacuation and keeping people in line. He was resting in a blown out window in one of the smaller buildings. I dismissed my archwing and landed rather forcefully next to him. The building was missing a chunk of wall and I looped the ring on my back around a twisted bar of metal and hung from it like a swing.

Holding up a small metal ball Siren had given me I spoke to Spiderman for the first time. "You did a good job helping the way you did."

"I know, but I still wish I could have fought."

I looked at him, one of my braids twirling between my fingers. "You would have gotten yourself killed." Early on in the battle I had made a point of finding him and forcing him to help with evacuating instead of fighting off Chitauri. I ran interference, providing a fighter screen against any that might have made it past the others. At least, until the whole nuclear warhead thing. "You may have potential stemming from reaction speed and strength, but that-"

"Doesn't mean Jack squat if I don't know how to use it. Geez that's cliché." In my somatic pod, I smiled. No idea who this Jack is or why he's squatting, I guess it's an idiom.

"I have gotten the go ahead to help up your combat prowess. My research indicates that you humans put a lot of faith in your 'cell phones' for communication, do you want to use yours to contact me?" The other guy shrugged.

"I don't know… phones can be used to track me, so I don't carry mine on me when I'm being Spiderman. Is there some other way?"

I snorted, tossing my warframe's head to get the message across. "If you're worried about being tracked by me, you have more luck hoping dogs couldn't track you over dry ground after not bathing for three weeks. Our systems track beyond what is visible. You cannot hide from us. Not now that I've met you. Besides, if I'm going to help you hiding behind the suit isn't going to help. Logically speaking, the most effective way to handle this would be to-"

"To tell you my secret identity. No. I don't trust you with that yet. If there's any way to help me without that, I'll take it, otherwise no thanks."

I backpedaled. "Alright fine. I won't come find you unless it's an emergency." I paused. Matariel hailed me.

"We're going through with telling Fury, and half telling Stark, he's going to rig us up an earthside connection using Simaris' thing as an anchor point. We're also transferring said machine to Stark Tower for safekeeping. Stark has offered us use of a couple of the tower's floors once it's been rebuilt. Siren accepted. I'm guessing you will too?"

"Yes."

"I'll let Stark know." The comm closed.

Spiderman had noticed the lapse in attention and had guessed I was talking to someone. Even behind the mask his gaze was an obvious question. "Stark made us an offer. We will be granted a couple of floors in Stark's tower for using." I said by way of explanation.

"That means that we can meet up whenever we want! That's awesome! I wish I could stay in Stark's tower." He seemed to have reverted to innocent child mode, and I let him have his fun. Looking down on the police, I watched them handle the masses with only semi-practiced efficiency. A group of white vehicles had arrived and the people in them had paired off to go stand near the rubble, one with their back to it, the other holding a rather hefty metal something on their shoulder.

"What are they?" I asked the red and blue hero wannabe.

He took a second to look at what I meant. "Those are news reporters. Part of the media. They go around and look at stuff, then tell people all around what's going on. Then the people back at their workplace talk a lot about how other people are reacting, and then it spirals out of control and everyone ends up with a confused version of what actually happened."

 _Propaganda machines._ I got up and moved out of their line of sight. Spiderman saw this and his masked shifted with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged. "If they exaggerate like you say." I said. "Then if they see us the world at large will think us capable of singlehandedly bringing down countries. Which isn't true." I paused and gave it some thought. "It would only take two of us."

Spiderman snorted. "Not if the heroes who saved New York came after you."

"With all due respect to your human pride, they do not hold a candle to us. We were created to fight an enemy that would overpower your world in moments, the Chitauri, without the Avengers, would take weeks, and even then there would be resistance pockets. If a fully grown Sentient came for you, there is not a thing anyone could do." he still seemed a bit dubious, so I expounded. "Where we come from, there was a Sentient named Hunhow. He and his daughter, Natah, single handedly brought down an empire that spanned the entire solar system. We, in all our power, numbering in the millions, can barely handle the ghost of his bones. If he were to come to this world… God help you." It wasn't a total lie, he didn't need to know they used us to do it. He sat in silence, processing the new info. After a few minutes of amiable silence, Spiderman spoke up.

"Sooo…" He seemed a loss for words. I waited patiently for him. "How is this training thing going to work?"

* * *

 **Weeks later:**

The arrangement we had come to with Tony and Mr. Fury was rather simplistic. We would have a floor to ourselves to do with whatever we wish. This was where they would house Simaris' link and provide us with an on-world base of operations. Though truth be told most of the floor would be turned into gardens if I had to guess. Fury didn't want us to come down from heaven when going on missions, so we would always deploy from the tower. This would help with public image, whyever that mattered was beyond me. But I wasn't that diplomatic a person. I would be the main liaison between us and SHIELD, while Siren would handle any exterior relations.

Fury's reaction to the second dream had gone better than expected. When we had stepped out of our frames for the first time, after checking to see if the void energy wouldn't do harm, he had blinked his one good eye and brought his hands to his face. "So the possibly greatest combat force known to mankind is a collection of children who ended on the bad end of an FTL jump?" He shook his head. "I can't- do you know how people would react-"

"No." I said firmly, though my child's voice didn't really help much. "We don't. And we won't find out, either." I said pointedly and returned to my Loki. I turned to the door to leave, planning to start prepping to move Simaris' link, codenamed 'Arcata', after the tenno sports gear, from the Arctic to SHIELD's temporary holding site. When I opened the door, however, Rain was waiting for me. I stopped, to give him the chance to speak, but he didn't, he simply nodded in Fury's direction. Now that we had regular contact with the Lotus, I resumed being simply clanmaster instead of taskmaster. I had no real authority over the actions of my clanmates, except on missions that required tactical insight. Whatever he wanted on his time was his business. I continued on my way.

Construction of the new Avengers Tower was… well it was happening. Technically. I don't know the human construction process, all I do know is that it involves a lot of talking and a lot of effort going toward making sure the other person knows what you are talking about. The construction workers had been briefed on my existence and so didn't react when I showed up to survey the construction, occasionally jumping from one precarious girder to another and watching their progress. Theris offered to help with heavy lifting using his archwing, and soon after both Polis and Siren were helping as well.

As I watched them coordinate moving a particularly large chunk of building I heard Iron man fly up beside me. "You wanted to talk?" He asked.

"Yes." I waved for him to follow me and walked down the twisted metal bar and inside the half made building. Teli was waiting there, doing whatever the it was she did with her Artemis bow while passing time. Addressing Tony, I said. "I wanted to show _you_ this since you are in the best position understand." I nodded at Teli, she deactivated an invisibility arrow. There, laying limp on the floor, was my Titania warframe.

Tony started, whatever snark he had loaded never got past his lips. "Wh-who is that?" He asked. I gently took the Titania's hand in mine.

"Me." I said. Before I forced a transference jump across. My Loki crumpled to the floor. Slowly my connection reestablished and I got up and turned to the stunned genius. "We are not bound to one body, much like your suits." Teli came over and helped me lift the limp warframe. We carried it to a newly completed section of our floor, a room we planned on keeping warframes that we weren't using but wanted to keep close to the ground. I wouldn't be needing overt stealth for some time, and rather than switching out at a later time I thought I would show Stark. After we set the Loki down I dismissed Teli with a nod and returned to Stark.

"Prudence dictated that you know. Try to keep it a secret. Though the other Avengers are allowed to know." I could almost feel the gears turning in his head. Deciding to leave him to his thoughts, I stepped past him, waving my hand in front of my face as I did. I could _smell_ the smoke coming from the gears turning in his head. It stank. Now clad in a new frame, I decided to go pay Rain's pet project a visit.

* * *

I don't know what woke me up. Looking at the clock, I saw it was three in the morning.

And I had decided to actually _sleep_ for once instead of going out on patrol. I guess my body wasn't going to let me. I got up, not bothering with any clothes since I was about to put on my suit.

 _I wonder if Rain is up? Maybe it -he- would be ok with some training, just to wear me out._ Caught up in my thoughts as I was, I didn't see the butterfly sitting on the windowsill until I had already opened my window. I froze in place. One look and I knew it wasn't a normal insect. For one thing it was made of metal. And it didn't have six feet, despite it clearly being a butterfly.

Something about it did remind me of Rain. I reached out to it, but before I got close it flitted away. I watched it go, floating up into a nearby tree.

Where someone like Rain sat.

She was mostly grey, with some deep red-orange highlights like that loki guy from the alley. Spindly in stature, with two extra appendages extending from her lower back, much like the flying thing that Rain and the others had used.

 _I wonder who she is._ I thought. Out loud, I said. "H-hello? Are you a friend of Rain's?" Something wet dripped down the side of my face. I touched it and my fingers came back red. Another metal butterfly floated from behind me back toward the tree.

"Do. Not. Use. Our. Names. Out. Loud." She said. The voice wasn't feminine, and I didn't recognise it. It continued speaking. "I am a dear friend of the one you speak of. He has taken a liking to you and I am taking the time to judge you for myself."

The being twirled in the air, dispersing into a cloud of simmering metal. They flew around me and into the room before coalescing again. Even in the light of my room, the thing looked ominously dark. "We have met before. In the alley. I was a Loki then."

"Oh you're the guy that R- Nezha called in!" I shifted away from it. Her. Him. Something about standing near the tenno was like having a knife held to my neck. Too close and I might get sliced. "But wait how are you the same person?"

"Mr. Stark has his suits, we, have our warframes."

It had taken me a while in my sleepy state to identify what that was in his voice. "You… don't like me, do you?"

"I look down on you. And before you say anything, there _is_ a difference." The warframe settled on top of my dresser. "For whatever reason, you, Peter Parker, have caught my dearest friend's attention. He divulged his _name_ to you. Culturally speaking, that has huge significance. Practically speaking, he has come _dangerously_ close to disclosing secrets that so far only one human knows for certain. As the leader of my clan I must address this." He floated off the dresser and began tapping a sharp finger against my chest for emphasis. "This is your warning. You will not know when you've messed up. You will be dead." He leaned back, floating about a foot off the ground. The warframe's chin jerked to the left, an odd gesture. People always mention how the temperature in a room can drop when someone gets dangerous, but somehow, this tenno managed to do the exact opposite. He sighed.

"And here I thought I was a fun person, and here I am, giving the 'father's daughter' speech. I look down on you because you are small and have yet to prove yourself. But I do understand what it is Nezha sees in you." He looked me up and down and suddenly I remembered I wasn't wearing anything. "I mean you neither harm nor ill will. Maybe I will stop by sometime and we can have a nice chat. Don't worry, I will warn you next time I decide to drop in."

I was reeling. _He knows my identity, meaning all of them probably do. There was no hesitation calling me out. This is probably what it would feel like if a hurricane suddenly expressed sentience._ The feeling of an impossible power turning its attention on a mere mortal was inescapable. _And yet, I still get the impression that he does actually care._

The tenno turned to leave. It dispersed into a cloud of metal butterflies, but before it left, with a voice that was half in my mind and half made by the sound of hundreds of scissors spoke. "We took notice of you as a person. Any more heroic activity and higher forces will take notice of you as an unknown entity. Be very cautious how and when you carry yourself." And with that, he was gone.

* * *

As I flew, I cursed to myself.

 _I didn't mean to come off that… mean. I hope I can make it up to the poor guy. He looked absolutely terrified._

What I felt when I first laid eyes on him was… unsettling. Protectiveness? Concern? I wouldn't know. But I wanted him to always be well. I resolved to be nicer to him. With that thought, I contacted Rain.

"Yes?"

"You told him your name."

"Yes."

"You realize how close you came to revealing the second dream?"

"..."

"Never. Again."

"Yes sir."

I _tsked_ to myself. What was with me today? I'd been feeling hollow all day and it was making me act strangely. Rain never said yes sir unless he was truly chastised. Which wasn't my intention in the slightest.

* * *

Another week passed, and I finally actually got around to visiting Spiderman again. I went with Rain this time, as we planned on doing some sparring of our own. I was using my Wukong since it hadn't been used in a while. Armed with my rakta cernos and spira prime on my back and hip and my lacera in my grip I dropped out of my ship and onto the roof we had chosen to meet. Rain was already there, decked out in his favorite loadout, but Spiderman wasn't. I checked my internal chronometer. 3:30.

"You know when he'll be here?" I asked the other tenno. Rain shook his head. I brandished my Lacera. "Might as well get started."

* * *

It had taken me awhile to find a time to change, Rain had assured me that it was fine, since he didn't have a particular schedule. Ned's a nice guy, but he sometimes he doesn't stop talking, and I was feeling particularly _wired_ and I didn't know why. I swung between the building at an incredible speed. Courting more near-misses than normal, but I brushed them off. The city was beginning to recover from the alien attack, the sunset turning the corpses of the flying monsters a brilliant orange-bronze. Spotting the building we were meant to meet up on, I executed a neat flip and sped around the next building, altering my course to land on top of the building adjacent.

Rain was already there. But so was someone else. He and Rain were fighting on the roof, going at it with some serious vigor. I sat back on the edge of the roof to watch.

The new tenno reminded me of a monkey, tail and everything. It wielded a sword and chain, while Rain still had that weird circular thing that he threw around like a boomerang/throwing star. The monkey warframe stabbed forward with the sword, but Rain easily twisted by it. Before Rain could land a blow however, his opponent leapt back and away. The long chain hooked Rain's legs out from under him, he caught himself in a handstand and cartwheeled into a ready stance.

Just in time for the sword to swing on the end of its chain and hit him directly in the side, sending Rain skidding across the roof. The two paused again, I saw that what I thought was a sword was more akin to a four foot long pair of scissors, colored a deep red. Rain's form flashed blue and the fight was on once more. I could barely follow the next exchange, even with my enhanced senses. All I caught was that it resulted in the monkey warframe getting sent flying. From among the flailing limbs a bright blue-green line lanced out and struck Rain's guard, glancing off and impaling itself into the rim on the edge of the roof. Looking back to the tumbling frame I saw that it was, in fact, not tumbling anymore, but swinging on the end of the longest staff I'd ever seen. Fifty feet long, easy. The warframe flipped up, landing and balancing on the end, before bouncing off the end like a spring board and catapulting into the air, taking the staff with it. The staff vanished from sight for an instant before reappearing, more than a foot in diameter, and slamming down on Rain again.

A twirl and the staff was a regular size again. The warframe wielding it unleashed a fury of acrobatic blows on Rain, leaving almost no chance of retaliation.

Almost.

In the split second between two strikes Rain threw both his throwing weapon and a whirling ring of purple fire. Blazing chakram, he had called it. I'd seen the thing melt through a chitauri flier during the Invasion, but somehow it only bounced off of the wall and fly at the monkey warframe, who spun and flicked it back at Rain without a second thought and caught the throwing weapon on the staff. The newer warframe's chin twitched to the left.

The one from the alley. This was the other tenno I met in the alley. Rain had said the he won six duels out of ten, and this tenno was the remaining four. I watched with renewed understanding, as the two kept at it. They always paused when one of them flashed red, and resumed when they flashed blue.

 _Some sort of messaging mechanism on the battlefield?_ I thought to myself _._ Then they were at it again. This time, however, Rain was beginning to flag. He took more hits, the time between red flashes was less and less. To be fair, Rain was dish out as well as taking, more than once the monkey warframe flashed red. When he did, you could see the happiness in his body language. Despite his greatest efforts though, Rain couldn't sustain the fight, and he flashed red in one hit, and that seemed to mark the end of it.

"Wow guys that was so cool to watch!" I said, swinging down to them. Rain tensed up, but then relaxed when he saw it was me.

"Spiderman." Something flew at me and I caught it. It was a USB drive. "A list of warframes, memorize them." I nodded, putting the flash drive into one of my suit pockets.

"Who are you?" I asked the monkey warframe.

"I'm the-" He realized what I meant. "I'm Wukong." The tenno's tail flicked. "So." He continued. "How have you been doing things?"

"Mostly it's just been me trying to land a real hit on him." I said, throwing a thumb toward Rain. The wukong made a gesture that looked like a snort. "Let me see what you've got." The warframe went into a ready stance and so did I. The warframe dropped his ready stance almost immediately as my spider sense spiked and I barely dodged out of the way of the staff, which had extended with blinding speed toward my foot. Before I could blink the tenno was right next to me and had his foot hooked under the one I had put my weight on.

"Tell me how your danger sense works." Wukong said, reaching out to steady me.

"I don't really know." I told him. "I just know whenever I'm in imminent danger."

"Alright. Come at me again, this time I will only defend."

I ran at him. Planning a straightforward punch, but throwing my superhuman strength behind it.

He caught it with an open hand, but I did get the satisfaction of forcing him to brace himself with his back foot.

"Where were you planning on hitting me?" Wukong asked around my clenched fist. I made to jump back before answering, but he held me down. I strained against his grip. "Rule number one. Attack with a plan. It doesn't have to be exacting in detail, but a strategy must exist for you to successfully deal with an opponent. Again." He let go and I stumbled back.

Preparing for another try, I thought about my next moves. With a tentative plan, I launched my attack. I came in low, wanting to try and lift him off his feet. Wukong's tail flicked. I swung upward. The tenno shifted position, then kicked my feet out from under me. He never even gave me the dignity of falling gracefully on my face, catching my wrist and pulling me up to my feet. He made an exaggerated sighing motion. "This isn't working. Time for a different approach. Nezha."

Rain, who had taken to spinning his ring around one arm, looked up. He stood, hooked the ring on his back, and walked over, his body language indicated casualness, but there was some apprehension.

"W-what are you going to do?" I asked the monkey warrior.

"Guidance." He responded. He drew his staff, planted it firmly on the ground, and with a _poing_ noise pushed himself up and turned into a cloud. Said cloud floated down toward me. It expanded, covering my whole body. I couldn't even see my own hands it was so dense. I waved in front of my face in awe. It smelled like heavy rain, and mountain forests, or at least what I imagined those things to smell like.

"You ready?" I distantly heard Rain ask.

"Ready for wha-" I asked, just before my spider sense erupted. Before I could do anything something pulled me down and brought my arm up to deflect the incoming blow.

 _Oh I get it._ I thought. _Guidance._

Wukong, in cloud form, pushed and pulled me to what I assumed the 'right' responses were. It was a weird sensation, like having three or four trainers, all nudging me in the right direction at the same time. I found myself actually fighting up to par, which was new to me.

I ducked under a high kick and deflected a punch. I noticed that I had unknowingly closed my eyes at some point, since Wukong's cloud obscured my vision. I was relying totally on spider sense to know when and where Rain's attacks were coming.

Wukong guided me through a dizzying offense of punches and kicks but got interrupted by Rain kicking me square in the chest, sending me skidding. I tensed for another strike, but it never came. Confused, I opened my eyes to find I could see both tenno standing in front of me. "What's up?" I started to say, but a hand interrupted me. They both had their heads tilted, I remembered that that meant they were listening to something over their communication system, something Rain had tried to explain it once, but all I had gotten out of the explanation was _fancy space magic radio_.

I waited patiently, or at least I appeared to. These silences were unnerving whenever they happened. I had figured out real quick that a tenno could walk through a brightly lit hallway and if you weren't looking directly at them, you would have no idea they were there. I could tell because of the ambient spider sense they triggered, but that was it.

They finished whatever they were discussing and turned to me. "You have incredible reaction time for a human." The Wukong said.

"I'm sensing a but." I responded.

"Well there are three here." I sniggered at Rain's comment. Wukong ignored him and continued.

"All you need is proper response to enemy attacks. Do this and very few humans will stand a chance against you."

"Sweet. Now what was… that whole thing about?" I said, gesturing vaguely between the two of them. They looked at each other. Another silent conversation.

"We cannot tell you." Wukong immediately launched himself off the side of the building, followed closely by Rain who paused just long enough to say "Sorry bud, we can't ignore this. I'll give you a ride on the archwing next time if you want."

That one felt like a consolation prize.

"Fine. See you later. Maybe." I said, trying to put all of the disappointment I felt into words. Childish? Probably. Satisfying? A little bit. I was just beginning to get into flow, man. Rain stopped again just before he jumped. He turned and gave me a hesitant pat on the head. "Don't overestimate yourself buddy. I was telegraphing a lot." Laughing, he fell backwards off the roof, caught his archwing mid-air, and was off. Leaving me in silence. Wondering what he meant.

* * *

Back on Lua, Gemma was with Sandon and Teli, clearing out the tower of any Grineer or Corpus they found. Apparently there had been quite a few left when the tower shifted, and they had set up an operations post. Dressed as Ember she barely paused to shoot anything that was left alive in the burning hellscape the place had become. Instead, she occupied her thoughts with comparing this world to the tenno's native one.

 _This place is pre- war of subjugation, they are definitely pre Meso Age, possibly pre Lith. They don't even know about the void, and they haven't even begun to leave the planet. But that doesn't really help much, considering the two great information blackouts that have happened since the void was harnessed._

So bound in their missions were they that they didn't notice that one of the many boulders that had come with the tower when it had transported had finally exited the tower's tracking range. Its white and pale red surface gleamed in the sunlight, the many dangling forms of battalysts and conculysts rattled in a nonexistent breeze. It accelerated away, to join two others of its kind, and together they began to fly toward their original destination, the homeworld of the orokin, the enemy's stronghold. Earth.

* * *

AN: DUN DUN DUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHH


	7. Controlled Definistration

AN: I'm baaaack! I do apologize, but I'm going to be slowing down on how often I upload. That way I have time to write and sit on things before I publish them without there being a huge dearth of uploads once I catch up with where I'm writing. Also I'm stalling for Black Panther and Infinity War.

That sentence made very little sense. It's LATE dammit.

Anywhoot: Without further adieu...

* * *

The mission SHIELD had given us was incredibly simple. Capture person X and take them to location Y at time Z. Sending two tenno was already overkill, and of course they wanted to send this Hawkeye guy along with us. Don't get me wrong, his accuracy was impressive, but he was too slow for open effective combat. Teli misses about one in every five shots, but when you're shooting at forty-fifty shots a minute, the error is forgivable.

We had, as a clan, decided that when it comes to missions, we would perform what was asked of us exceptionally well, without resorting to the full extent of our skill. This decision stemmed both from the fact that we are unfamiliar with how society works here and we don't want to scare the humans. When it came to the syndicates we could go all out, but for them our ways were part of everyday life. Not so here.

Rain and I kneeled on the floor of the quinjet, heedless of the G-forces we felt when the jet made a sharp turn. Hawkeye sat in one of the seats, fully strapped in, looking at us. After a few moment, he turned to me and asked "Who's the new guy?" Rain had switched over to his hydroid prime, since it was raining at our destination and the target was near a lake. He would be my backup and watch Hawkeye's back.

I pulled out my opticor to check its energy stores while I answered. "He is called Hydroid. Water themed. 'Unleashes the kraken.'" Hawkeye rolled his eyes and went to check his bow's rigging. We would be on site in less than three minutes.

"Well Hydroid, you're going to be watching our immediate area while Loki goes in and gets the target?" Rain nodded. "Alright." He said, strapping on a parachute. The pilot called out that we were nearing the drop zone. Rain and I walked over to the lowering door.

"What's our disposition?" I asked. At Hawkeye's confused look Rain elaborated. "How should he handle non-target combatants?"

Hawkeye shrugged shouldering his bow. "We generally prefer non lethal if possible. But if they engage don't hesitate."

"No, I mean-" Rain started, but I interrupted him. Over void comm I said. "Don't worry about it. They still think in terms of their own capabilities. I just won't be seen."

"But you won't be using our capture method, you have to carry the target."

"It's fine," I told him. "I got this." I gently tapped the side of his head with my hand and dove off the ramp.

* * *

Well. I _thought_ I would be spotting enemies for the Loki, but every time I went to point someone out he had blown past them already.

I sat back in my seat near the top of our tree. An ambient fog was trying to cling to the area after the heavy rain. That, plus it being early morning meant everything was a shade of grey.

 _Fury had allotted for four hours to mission completion. We'll be done in just over four minutes._ I sighed. Hydroid turned to me. "I might as well retire." I said. "You, the rest of the Avengers, minus Black Widow, make us normal agents irrelevant."

"Don't say that." Hydroid tried to console. "There are only so many of us. People like you make the world a better place by being better humans, we make the world better by culling the insufferable. You inspire, we do not. You 'normal' heroes will always be needed more than… heroes… like us."

I gave him a surprised look. "That's… surprisingly deep. Thanks." I told it. Him.

Hydroid waved it off with a hand. "Don't worry about it. When you-" he stiffened. He whipped around, despite the lack of eyes it was obvious where he was looking. A soft voice spoke over my earpiece.

"How… attached are you to the idea of keeping these people alive?"

I looked over at Hydroid. His body language said it all: _Something is very wrong._

"Why?"

"There are more than double the number of people here we expected."

I frowned. It was odd for SHIELD to get something like that wrong. Still. "That shouldn't pose a problem for someone like you. Why bring it up?"

"Because more than half of the people here are being held against their will."

My eyes widened. "They're being trafficked." _This changes things._

"I suddenly find myself much less attached to doing this stealthily." Loki's voice held a hard edge to it, something I'd never heard before in their voices, which were usually happier at the very least if not downright jovial when talking about culture and history. "If you have no objection?"

I swallowed. I felt something in my gut, similar to having someone in my crosshairs, but much more lethal.

"Careful." Hydroid said. "I've never seen him like this. If you say yes there might not be a minimum safe distance."

I did some quick mental math. _So SHIELD got the number of hostiles right, just didn't account for there being just as many non combatants. That means there are over a hundred innocent people in the building._

"The target comes first. Get the people out if you can." I told him.

"Understood." No sooner had I said that than I caught sight of a faint blue flash in one of the building's windows. I glanced over at Hydroid, who was staring intently at the building. He looked up at me, his countenance solemn. He said only one thing, but even with all the training and all of the death I had seen over my career, it still sent chills down my spine.

"They're all going to die."

* * *

Back at the Avenger's Tower Tony was having a bit of a hard time. He had been trying to negotiate with Cephalon Simaris for days now, trying to get a hold of whatever knowledge he could in the name of scientific advancement. Unfortunately, the damn thing didn't put much stock in that sort of thing. He referred to Simaris as a 'thing' because on one occasion he had called him an AI, and that conversation ended almost immediately with Simaris telling him he did not understand the difference between an artificial intelligence and a cephalon and that he wasn't ready to handle the implications of creating one. Simaris then promptly ended the communication, and no amount of liking or prodding on Jarvis' part could reestablish it.

Stark sighed and grabbed another coffee. In passing curiosity, and no small need to feel in control again, he thought about the mission Clint and the two tenno had gone on. Perhaps… "Jarvis, are there any cameras in the vicinity of Clint's mission?"

"The building they are working in has approximately five integrated security cameras and three SHIELD micro-cameras."

"Pull them up for me?"

Numerous holographic screens popped up, showing various goons patrolling the hallways. One of the cameras showed a prison block, holding several dozen people in various states of distress. _That's odd._ Tony thought hurriedly trying his coffee. "I don't remember their mission being a rescue."

"It wasn't." Natasha strolled in, signature hip sway distracting as always. Her face was a mask of slight concern. "Just contacted Fury. Clint just made the call that after the target is captured to proceed to rescue them if they can."

"So the problem is that getting several dozen people past several dozen other people isn't easy?" Tony said, eyebrow raised.

"No." The spy said. "The problem was Loki's response to seeing the prisoners, and his implied solution."

"Which was…?"

"Kill all hostiles. In ways that are likely way past cruel and unusual. I have no doubt they could pull it off, too. They-" She stopped, eyes glued to the screens behind the billionaire. He turned. Just in time to the warframe trisect one of the goons. The pieces didn't fall to the floor, but instead floated upward, the once-man rapidly evaporated into glowing blue smoke. Both Stark and Natasha's eyes widened. Anyone could see that the warframe had flown into a rage, it's normally calm and controlled mannerisms smashed to pieces.

It came upon a group of five goons and before any of them could blink a dagger sprouted from his neck, muting, but not killing him. Then the Loki was in between three of them, a blue-orange pulse and their guns jammed. Bullet holes appeared between their eyes. Another flash and the fifth, who had been running to panic button, was back where he started. He tried to run the other direction, but was tackled to the floor with the warframe standing on his wrists. The two avengers watched as the warframe pulled out a huge gun of some sort and aimed it at the guard's head.

Fwoomp. The guard's body was gone, so was the floor beneath it, and the three more guards who were on the floor below.

And yet, at no point were any alarms raised.

The two watched as, even in the depths of wrath, not a single victim fell with a sound, and no trace of them was left behind. Any who saw him was dead and vaporized before they could communicate their distress.

The ordeal was over in minutes. When Loki finally got to his target, the base was devoid of any hostile people. The microcamera showed, in great detail, how Loki became visible once again and placed his swords on his back. The target spotted him and immediately panicked. He called for help, but no one came. Loki slowly approached, his posture one of a predator and barely contained fury. He never said a word though, but instead blurred forward and struck the man across the head, knocking him out. The tenno approached the window, broke it and waved his hand. A flash of orange-gold light and Loki stood, empty handed. Natasha put her hand to her earpiece. She nodded and turned to Stark.

"Clint just reported mission complete. He's returning with the target, the tenno are to report directly to Fury for debriefing. Quinjets have been scrambled to get the prisoners out of there and back to their families."

After that, the two stood in silence, processing what they had just seen. After a minute, the Loki on-screen vanished into sparkling dust.

Tony blinked, shook his head as if to clear it, and quickly walked back to his lab. Natasha watched him go without a word, then she left too.

They both had some serious conversations to attend to.

* * *

Tony stormed down the tower to the floor he had given the Tenno. Well, as much as someone can storm while in a slow elevator playing nondescript, upbeat, semi-modern music.

As he strode down the hall he tried to sort out his thoughts on what he had seen.

 _We've been fools to give these things our trust._ He thought. _The power they wield is too lethal, but then again, it's not like we're much different when compared to normal people._

Tony burst into the warframe's hall.

They had turned the place into an indoor garden, with squares of sand and floor-to-ceiling algae aquariums. The billionaire instantly lost a large chunk of steam just by entering.

Steve was already here, but obviously for a different reason than me. He was sparring with one of them. Since Tony had been told about their ability to 'swap bodies' or whatever it was he had come to recognize them by their coloring, which seemed a good indicator of what mind was in the suit. The one Steve was sparring with had a thing for greys and yellows. I had first seen him as an Excalibur, but he now wore an Oberon.

The tenno wielded a huge hammer, one I had never seen before, while the capsicle used his regular shield. As he watched, the tenno brought the hammer around and smashed right into the shield. Steve went for a counterattack but the hammer was already coming down from above him, forcing him to roll out of the way. He came out of it and made a grab for the hammer, trying to stop the wild swinging. He succeeded, but it backfired when the tenno let go of the hammer altogether, triggering something in the process. What looked like rocket engines attached to the back of the hammer's head fired, and the hammer spun, almost instantly twisting his arm past normal range and causing him to drop it with a hiss.

Tony coughed, belatedly announcing himself. The tenno reached down to pick the warhammer off the floor and gestured for his opponent to give him his wrist. Steve, who was trying to keep a pained expression off his face, tenderly held out his hand. The warframe examined it, nodded to itself, and slammed the butt of the hammer into the ground. A pulse of light, and Steve was looking at his arm with an incredulous look on his face. "Thanks." He said. The tenno nodded before turning to the man standing in the doorway. The motion had an uncanny resemblance to the deer his helmet resembled, but without any of the fear.

"What's up Tony?" Steve asked, wiping his face with a towel.

"Oh, not much. One of them just casually massacred one or two hundred people."

"What!?"

"Give or take."

"Tony. What the heck are you talking about?"

"Fury sent two of them on a mission with Clint. The mission was to capture a PoI alive. They discovered that the building was also a trafficking hub, and killed everyone of the bad guys as a result."

Steve turned to the present tenno. "Care to explain?"

The warframe shrugged. "We aren't robots. We are just as prone to losing our temper as you are."

"The only problem being when you all lose your temper hundreds die."

The warframe's posture hardened, it's voice icy. "We were created to fight a war on behalf of a civilization that paraded children like a fashion show and stole bodies like you change clothes. Forgive us for having raw feelings on the subject of captive innocents. Now. If you'll excuse me, I've been called for a shift on Lua." The warframe stalked out of the room, clearly done with the discussion.

Tony, incredulous, tried to bodily stop the warframe from leaving. The tenno whipped out a strange looking pistol and fired at a nearby rock formation. It melted a hole clean through.

"Not a good idea, even in your armor." The tenno said, and continued walking right past Tony.

* * *

Two days later, Rain and Peter met again on a city rooftop. They sparred, Peter was doing much better after Matariel had begun guiding him through proper combat maneuvers.

Unbeknownst to them, they were being watched from a window in the Avengers Tower. A pair of Octavias, one grey with vibrant purple and yellow highlights and rings of brilliant yellow and one pale green and deep purple with energy colored purple like pale wine.

One sat on the windowsill, the other leaned on it. The grey one tossed a mallet ball to the green one, who listened to the song encased within. After a moment, it changed a few notes and threw it back.

"Nezha has gotten very attached to that one." The grey warframe said. She adjusted a few notes, and tossed it again. "Does Loki approve? Fraternising with these humans could prove detrimental to both sides."

"He does." The green warframe responded. Throwing the mallet back.

Behind her grey visage, Gemma raised an eyebrow. She threw the mallet back.

Teli was never one to volunteer to speak, so it was a surprise when she continued. "I'm inclined to agree." She tinkered with the mallet for a while. "Think about it. That's what you do right?"

Gemma took a moment. Then it hit her. "Outside of Meewa and the Nakak, we haven't dealt with any children at all other than tenno. No wonder he grew attached to this human, it's the first kid he's seen with no preconceptions that can remotely keep up."

"Cetus, as friendly as it is, still hides its children from us." Gemma caught the mallet thrown her way.

Gemma took a moment to listen to the mallet's song as she processed this revelation. Rain always caught on to things quickly. If he was making friends, it could very well be the best option. She looked out over the city, getting back on its feet from the invasion. A couple of the flying worms still had yet to be moved, and already people were starting to take them apart on their own. She threw the mallet back to Teli.

"Have any more arguments been made about how much we give SHIELD?"

The green warframe shrugged, her helmet's plume bobbed. "No. That's all on you and Banshee."

Gemma nodded to herself. As she watched Rain interact with Spiderman she reviewed the discussion she had had with Siren. On one hand, the tenno could give them technologies the humans could only dream of, and provide the benefit of hindsight, allowing them to progress in a much more just way than the Orokin. But on the other, this organization, SHIELD. Sure they claim to be an aegis against humanity's woes, but they aren't answerable to their inferiors. A shield does not tell the soldier where to stand. Giving them access to the void could very well break their society under the vast weight of its indifference.

"The blinding night, an infinite hellspace where science and reason fail in totality." Gemma spoke more to herself than Teli.

"They rely on science. To shake it now would not end well." The mallet flew through the air again. "Perhaps…"

"Perhaps…?"

Teli looked Gemma in the eye. "Perhaps we show them."

Gemma took this idea in silence. She put the mallet away and began to walk out of the room, heading toward the landing platform.

After Gemma was gone, Teli's shoulders slumped. She got off the windowsill and made her way over to the room's other door. Opening it, she found no one was there. She closed the door again. Switching to void comms, Teli spoke one word.

"Success."

Just under two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, in the middle of bisecting a corrupted bombard, an orange and grey Loki smiled.

* * *

Black Widow smiled to herself. _I still got it._ She thought making her way up the stairs to where Clint and Tony were waiting in the small kitchen. She had been passing by when she heard the warframes talking to each other. Curious, she had stopped to listen.

 _If this void thing they talk about really is as powerful as they claim, Fury will want to know. Tony too. And if they're offering to show us…_

She opened the door, Tony and Clint were both sipping beers on a nearby couch, the TV muted in the background playing god knows what news.

Clint turned and, seeing the look on the spy's face, asked. "What has you in such a good mood?"

She threw the billionaire a smug look. "I may have just found an in on learning about the warframe technology." Clint raised an eyebrow and Tony made a sour face. "Aw, don't make that face." She continued. "Not everyone's good at getting information as I am."

"No no. That's not what bugs me about this. What bugs me is that they willing gave me a head start, then stonewalled me." He took a sip. "Did you know those warframes are not actually their real bodies?" Natasha's eyebrows shot up. "The warframes are like my suits: interchangeable at will. Which begs the question…"

"Where are their real bodies?" Clint supplied.

The billionaire nodded. "If what you said is true and they are going to show us some of their technology, then we may be able to find the answer to that question, whether they like it or not. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a new suit to finish designing." He got up and left, muttering something about a new propulsion system.

* * *

AN: Aaaand poof. Matariel kinda lost his shit a bit there didn't he?

Headline:

WARFRAMES WAY MORE EFFECTIVE THAN EXPECTED; Tony Stark Reacts.

Favorite, follow, PURGE THE IGNORANT HEATHENS- Oh. My apologies reader. I will correct this fault immediately, don't forget to review!


	8. In The Beginning, There was a Boat

AN: Sooo... This was supposed to be posted last Sunday... I blame finals.

Sir Fart (the flatulent): Thanks! I intend to upload rather often. I'm going to be slowing down on how often I upload, though. That way I have time to write and see them with fresh eyes before I publish them and so there won't be a huge dearth of uploads once I catch up with where I'm writing. Also I'm stalling for Black Panther and Infinity War.

SandInTheEye (That must hurt): Some people just want to watch the world burn.

Helkil: OMG Thanks for pointing that out. I blame finals. (For those who don't know I posted the same chapter twice)

Anywhoot: Without further adieu... for real this time...

* * *

Siren was having a bad day. First, Matariel came to her with plans of showing the tower to some of the humans, then they had to go continue cleaning up said tower from the remaining corrupted. Which, by the way, why in the void did this tower have a neural sentry to begin with? Lua was in the void for the vast majority of the great war, possibly before the invention of neural sentries. Not even the Lotus knew, or would tell me. Not like there's much difference with her. So here she was, on her way back from an extended extermination run with Sandon and Matariel from some of the lower levels, in her Mesa warframe, and then Iron Man decides that he had to know something to do with Ayatan sculpture Rain had given him NOW.

There will be words. And they will not be nice words.

She listened to whatever question the so called 'genius' had, then told him to buzz the fuck off "The point of giving you that sculpture was so that you could figure it out, not have us tell you. If you can't figure out how the decorative equivalent to a desk lamp works that's not on me." She tuned out whatever he said in response and turned to Matariel, miming exasperation.

He put his hands up. "I had nothing to do with this." He said defensively.

"But you think sharing tech with the humans is a good idea."

"No, I think showing them is a good idea, if they can glean anything from scanning the tower, then they are welcome to it in my book. It'll be up to them to get here."

Siren crossed her arms. "That's not a very high barrier to entry."

The Loki savant waved his finger. "It might be for them. They have achieved limited space flight, coming here will give them incentive, and put a strain on their ability to keep secrets. Which we can exploit. Beyond that, a simple 'accident' would allow us to see how well they perform under our terms and conditions, not us under theirs."

"You want us to carry them."

"Well when you put it that way…"

Sandon spoke up. "The experience will educate both sides in the ways of the other. The intention of alliance holds the highest merit, but seeking kithship among these orokin predecessors against the umbrage of their own kind by manipulation is not a welcome idea. A bad taste will be left behind for a long time."

Matariel made a triumphant gesture. "Precisely. Maybe. Not sure who he was agreeing with." Siren just facepalmed.

Suddenly Matariel stiffened, his chin jerked to the left and his posture changed. In an instant the other two tenno had their weapons out.

"Restart interaction." Sandon said.

"I told Coroneer to inform me when the humans gain the capability to reach us here." Matariel told them. "He just did."

* * *

In some far corner of India Bruce put down his tool bag and wiped his brow. Helping these people had been a good idea, but it didn't mean it was easy. He finally had a place to stay though, and it felt good.

Before he could change into his sleeping clothes, however, a soft click alerted him to the room's sole window opening. He froze. In the mirror he caught sight of the intruder and relaxed. Somewhat.

The warframe was pale brown with electric green highlights, a color scheme he had come to associate with the dragon warframe that had gone toe-to-toe with the other guy and lived. But this wasn't him. It had two wings extending from its hips and was covered in what looked like butterflies.

"You know, I thought I had hidden pretty well, but I guessed I shouldn't be surprised, really. Tell SHIELD I want nothing to do with them for a while."

"Fury knows. He won't call on you or the other guy for some time. I'm not here because of that." The voice was unusually deeper than the other warframe's voices.

"Then what are you here for? And how did you find me?"

"Your… Oro, is not difficult to track down, even with this kind of a head start. I am here with an invitation and a warning."

"Okay…?"

"You are familiar with Simaris?" Bruce nodded. His interactions with the being had been limited, as it was only interested in the hulk, so Bruce tended to avoid him whenever possible. The warframe continued speaking. "Simaris came across something… odd, within the SHIELD system. He decided not to pull on the string, but we think Rogers might. My warning is to avoid contact with him for a while. He may ask for you, but do not respond. To that end: the invitation. Tony has developed the ability to reach our tower on Lua. He will probably ask if you want to join him. You need not worry about being turned back, and I'd say the moon is a pretty removed place to be in the event of you- … in the event of the other guy showing up."

Bruce took off his glasses and wiped is face with his hand. "I'll think about it. Your right, the moon is probably the best place for the hulk. But here I can help people. I'll have to weigh my options."

The warframe nodded, and it disappeared out the window once again. The next morning the small TV downstairs reported strange lights in the sky. But people dismissed it as nonsense and went about their day.

* * *

Five hours later, Tony's latest creation was sitting on the tarmac waiting for it's maiden trip to the moon.

Tony himself had just got off the phone with Fury, who had expressed interest in using the engine design for project Insight. And Tony had approved, seeing as the money would easily pay for the rest of the spaceship. The ship itself was a modified quinjet, with a much more powerful quartet of engines mounted on the back end and a pair of suped-up new engines on both wings, which had been extended. An airlock had been fitted in the back with a sliding ramp underneath instead of a door that lowered into a ramp, which had cost the jet a few of it's rear seats but given the circumstances it was not a great loss. Outside of making the whole thing airtight not much else was changed.

When Tony had told Steve their plan he had outright refused to join them saying: "I don't care about their technology, I care what kind of people they are. I'm not into technology like you are and I don't want to make the warframes angry. They would be justified and likely cause us significant harm. No."

Tony was just about to deliver a show-stopping argument that would surely convince the Captain to come with him, but Black Widow walked in with a mission for her and Steve, which put an end to the argument for him.

With a long-suffering sigh the billionaire met Happy's questioning stare with a business face and continued overseeing the quinjet's final checking procedures. Happy went back to looking over supplies, since this mission would take several days. All told, it would take a little under a day to reach the moon and Tony planned to stay for three, assuming the warframes let him. Simaris, when Tony asked, had been ambivalent, saying it was not his place to command the tenno one way or the other. Which further frustrated the genius.

The warframes moved with the surety of people used to taking commands, to the point where, from what Clint had told him, they needed very little in terms of orders to achieve what a mission required. "More like tools than soldiers." Clint had explained. "You tell them 'Go do a thing.' And that thing will get done in minutes what would take me or another agent days. We have lives outside saving the world. If you want my opinion, they don't. I would pity them, if I felt they needed it."

"Final check complete sir." An engineer brought Tony's thoughts back to the project at hand. Tony eyeballed they modified jet one last time.

"Alright gentlemen. Thank you for your hard work. Now let's get moving! I'm going to space and I ain't waiting longer than I have to."

The plan was simple: tell everyone that he testing out a new thrust engine by taking it into space for a week. He was taking a suit modified high atmosphere in case he had to jump off. In reality, only Happy, Pepper and Fury knew he was actually going to the moon.

Everyone scrambled to launch positions. Someone somewhere started a countdown. Tony walked up the quinjet's ramp and closed the door before donning his space jump armor.

"Is everything ready, Sir?" Jarvis asked through the speakers.

"Yep. Any word from our friends upstairs?"

"No signs of anything suspicious. No one knows you're going to the moon."

"What about the warframes?"

"Two are on planet right now and a third just lifted off from central India. It's trajectory indicates that it will be flying over the Pacific and therefore won't see us. I can only assume the other five are on the moon."

"Damn, well hopefully the stealth measures I've installed on this thing work."

Tony took his seat just as the countdown reached the thirty second mark. He began running system checks over comms and had Jarvis review the software.

"All internal systems are fully functioning Sir."

"Jarvis I believe the term is 'in the green'."

"I'll make the proper adjustments to my speech center."

The countdown reached zero and Tony lifted off. His suit compensated for a lot of the acceleration, but Tony still felt like dead weight in the seat. He lifted the jet up off the pad and shot into the air. After what felt like five minutes of body-crushing weight the jet made it out of atmosphere.

"Jarvis, how long did that take?" Tony asked, winded.

"One hundred forty seconds, sir."

"Damn. Well, time to make some calls."

"I'll patch you through."

Tony shifted in his seat. After these calls, he had a little under a day to kill. Deciding to go through some of the more recent files Jarvis had acquired (not stolen) from SHIELD, he settled in for the long haul.

* * *

Teli keeled near the top of the white building's dome. A large obelisk pierced the sky nearby. Invisible, she watched the Captain as he ran around the rectangular pond located in the center of all of these monuments. She pondered them.

Monuments to people was a strange concept to her. Only Vay Hek had ever done such a thing, but he still lived despite all efforts. The men these buildings commemorated were long dead. Any orokin important enough to be remembered would still be alive today if the tenno hadn't ended them, so monuments to the dead seemed strange in her mind.

The Captain passed by again. He and the Black Widow would be going on a mission in a few minute's time. Teli planned on accompanying them. If what Simaris had dug up was true, then things would be coming to a head soon, but the fact that he had only just now uncovered it this close to fruition meant the perpetrators were incredibly well versed in subversion. So much so that the ghost of their footprint set Matariel and Sandon on high alert.

We might need to fully mobilize. She thought to herself. But Matariel hesitates for fear of scaring the humans. The choice was such: Preemption or Reaction. There's a term some people use; 'Putting the fear of God into them'. Rather apt, but in this case it would be the Void, not some deity. From what I've read up on so far, humans in power tend to use legislation to assuage their fear of power.

Captain Rogers passed by again. He said something to another jogger as he passed and the other jogger said something back.

This won't end well for them. The sooner their end comes, the less painful it will be for us, because we are separate from them, but that will change over time. Teli assessed her internal clock. Right about…

"Ivara. It's time to begin your part of the mission. Go get us those prelim scans." Minim repeated Fury's order over void comms.

"Understood." Teli told the cephalon. She stood, and watched Rogers passed the jogger again. This time the other jogger said something first, but judging by his body language he wasn't quite happy with what Steve said before passing him by. Teli walked to the edge of the building, watching as familiar wedge shaped ripple in air rotated to reveal the deployment slot for her warframe. She turned around and got in, securing her feet and gripping the two handles. As she rotated into darkness, a thought crossed her mind: Just how far do these people have to go?

* * *

She made it to the target ship with time to spare. After the initial flyby in her liset Teli dropped onto the command tower of the boat and sat back to wait. Her cephalon automatically performed scans of the ship's inorganic structure while she herself began to assess the people on board. At Fury's insistence she was not to engage, only provide eyes on the ground.

"Operator, Captain America and Black Widow will reach position in five, four, thr- WHAT IS THAT IDIOT- operator, the Captain has jumped out of the quinjet and is free falling." Back in her transference pod Teli's face flashed a nonplussed expression before going blank once more.

Glancing to her right, she caught a small and brief splash of the side of the boat, confirming that he had, in fact, not been wearing a parachute. Moments later he was over the side and taking out what guards were patrolling the deck. He was really efficient, but one thing stuck out: the mercs weren't screaming, any grineer unit would have yelled out an alarm at the first sign of trouble, but these guys didn't. It put Teli on edge, and she pulled out her Artemis bow in preparation.

Good thing she had. The Captain missed one of them, and the guard was about alert his boss. Before he could press the button, however, a noise sounded from around the nearby corner. The guard slowly lowered the radio and went to investigate, unknowingly caught in the noise arrow's field of influence.

The arrow hit him so hard he flew out over the water.

The rest of the SHIELD squad hit the deck silently as humans could, and they were off to perform their mission. Teli returned to her watching post high on a dashwire between two towers. She watched Black Widow disappear into the lower decks and watched the SHIELD squad disappear over the side of the boat.

Then there was silence. After a few moments Teli, now bored, patched into their radio channel.

"Three… two… one." Gunshots.

No return fire, props to SHIELD.

"Hostages secure, Romanoff missed the rendezvous Captain, hostiles are still in play." That was one of the SHIELD mooks. Teli hadn't bothered learning their names. Rumlow?

Steve's voice piped up. "Natasha. Batroc is on the move. Circle back to Rumlow and help protect the hostages. Natasha-" A metal clang interrupted him and the com went dead.

In moments Teli had the Captain's position and fired a dashwire over to the nearest high point. She sprinted along, invisible, before diving off and landing silently in a space near where Steve and Batroc were facing off.

She almost loosed an arrow at Batroc, but refrained when she saw the look on the Captain's face stayed her hand. This was a duel, no interference. She put away her Artemis bow and sat down, close but well out of the way. Prowl made her invisible, not insubstantial.

In Batroc's defense, he put up a nice fight -Teli made note of a couple of his moves for use with sparring weapons- but he stood no chance. Rogers was superhuman, furthermore he had been training with Theris, if briefly. In moments the fight became uninteresting and Teli's eye began to wander.

The smashing of the door not two feet away brought her attention back in. Still prowling, she peeked through the doorway to find Steve on the ground with Batroc and Black Widow doing something on a nearby console.

"Well this is awkward." Black Widow smirked before resuming whatever she was doing on the computer.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked hurriedly walking over to her.

"Backing up the hard drive. It's a good habit to get into."

"Rumlow needed your help. What the hell are you doing here?" One glance at the monitor told him all he needed to know. "Your saving SHIELD intel."

"Whatever I can get my hands on." She told him, completely unapologetic despite the Captain's obvious feelings on the matter.

"Our mission is to rescue hostages."

"No, that's your mission." Teli bristled at this. That was not the right thing to say. Black widow pulled something out of the console. "And you've done a wonderful job." Teli focussed on what the agent held in her hand.

'What is that?' Teli wondered to herself.

"That, operator, is called a USB device. A -MINISCULE, LIMITED, WORTHLESS- handheld datamass used to move files from one computer to another without using a network." Minim preempted Teli's question. "Would you like me to -RIP- retrieve the data inside?"

"Go ahead."

"Accessing. WHO'S THE ONE IN CONTROL NOW SUCK-" The cephalon was cut off by an explosion and Batroc sprinting out of the room. The blast knocked Teli backwards and out of the way, but was up in a split second with an arrow trained on the back of Batroc's head. She fired, but Batroc ducked around a corner. Gone. Teli decided not to pursue in favor of checking up on the two Avengers.

She walked into the room, briefly wincing at the scorch marks before turning to where she sensed the two humans ducking behind a blown out window. She deactivated prowl when Steve peeked out and waved.

Black widow stood up and waved back. "I was wondering if you'd do anything about this…" she made a vague gesture toward the ship in general. "Fury told me you'd be feeding information to us." Teli just gave her a blank stare.

The Captain made another exasperated noise. "Does Fury tell me anything? This is ridiculous! I'm going to have words with him when we get back." He took a step toward the warframe and pointed at the other agent. "Did you know about her mission?" Teli just gave him a blank stare.

Natasha frowned. "Bad idea Steve. Who knows what kind of stuff will burst out of that pandora's box."

Steve started walking toward the door. "I don't care." I said simply. "I'm doing it anyway. If Fury thinks he can command soldiers like this he's wrong." He passed through the door, muttering something about not even catching Batroc.

Teli looked at Black Widow, who gave the warframe a shrug. Teli simply turned and followed Steve outside, summoning her Scimitar as she did. The landing craft came to a halt, positioned so that the deployment slot rested just above the railing. Turning and stepping inside, she saw that Black Widow had followed her and was eyeing the landing craft with curiosity.

"Don't touch my ride." Teli told the spy.

* * *

AN: Apologies for any mistakes in grammar, I tried to go through it, but my brain is a bit fried.

Favorite, follow, PURGE THE IGNORANT HEATHENS- Oh. My apologies reader. I will correct this fault immediately, don't forget to review!


	9. SOMEONE is over the Moon about this

AN: Impromptu hiatus over! I'm back baby!

Thanks to all you who reviewed. Most of you just said I was doing a good job, so I'll continue doing what I'm doing. We are officially into the Winter soldier arc, which I've been a bit nervous about. Trying to figure out how the tenno would act, knowing the organization their allies work for is about to implode. Also trying to keep the whole thing balanced, since I personally feel that even as few as three tenno could bring the avengers to their knees if the tenno went full throttle. That's not just fanboying, I DO have a story reason for setting the bar so high for them. I'll be fun times I swear.

On with the show!

* * *

As they flew back, Natasha decided that leaving Steve alone was the best idea, he was fuming, and she didn't want to deal with him. As unwelcome as the idea was, she would have to let Fury take this one.

Sucks for him.

She shifted her feet to compensate for the quinjet accelerating. She looked out front window and saw the pale green engine glow of the warframe's craft accelerating away.

What about one of those twins in Communications?

* * *

"You just can't stop yourself from-" Steve cut himself off when he saw there was a warframe in the room. He had never seen this warframe before, but Steve recognised the color scheme as belonging to the warframe first seen on the bridge of the Helicarrier; pale grey with vivid dark orange metallic accents.

"Steve, this is Vauban, Vauban, I'm sure you know Steve." The warframe turned to look at me, it's lack of facial features still managed to convey a sense of irritated patience at being interrupted. When Steve didn't continue the warframe gestured to do so, and stepped aside slightly to give Steve the majority of Fury's attention.

"You just can't stop yourself from lying can you?" Steve said, leaning both fists heavily on the desk.

Fury, obviously informed beforehand about Steve's reaction, didn't miss a beat. "I didn't lie to you. Agent Romanov had a different mission than you."

"Which you didn't feel obliged to share."

"I'm not obliged to do anything." Steve saw the warframe twitch out of the corner of his eye.

"Those hostages could half have died Nick."

"And I sent the greatest soldier in history, along with one of the most effective means of force projection ever seen by man to make sure they didn't."

"Soldiers trust each other, that's what makes them an army and not a bunch of people waving guns around." Steve turned to the warframe. "Right?"

The creature shrugged. "I don't belong to an army, I wouldn't know. Where I come from, soldiers are either indoctrinated with xenophobia or die if they don't obey. Sometimes both. We ourselves simply see what needs to be done and do it."

The Captain crossed his arms skeptically. "You're able to operate even you don't know if the guy next to you has other plans?"

The warframe gave him a look. "We don't have other plans. If one's actions become a hindrance, they get left behind, if they die because of their actions, they simply stay dead."

Steve's brow creased. "That's… not how any organization should be run."

The Vauban raised its hands in surrender, but said nothing more. Steve turned back to Fury. Fury gave Steve a very serious unimpressed look as he slowly stood up. "Last time I trusted someone I lost an eye." He paused and sighed. "I didn't want you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Romanov is comfortable with everything."

"I can't lead a mission when my men have missions of their own." Steve said, getting back into the argument.

"It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all." Fury spoke, obviously trying to suppress the impatience in his voice.

Suddenly both men looked at the warframe. Somehow it had commanded both their attention without lifting a finger. "That's a fallacy. Spreading secrets just means more people need to be captured in order to get the secrets, not that they won't be spilled in the first place."

Fury glanced over at Steve before telling the warframe: "You're not here to argue with me over military philosophy. We're here, you're here," He pointed at Steve. "because I intended to share something with you. Because I'm nice like that." Fury gave them both a cursory glance before turning to walk out of the office. They followed quietly behind.

As they walked down the hall, Steve turned to the Vauban. "Death…?" he asked, not sure how to formulate his question properly.

"Dax soldiers." It said by way of explanation. "Given great power, but an even greater weakness: they must obey the commands of whoever holds the Kuva Scepter. It is no more an option than a computer displaying letters when you type them. I only knew one, and he is incredibly wise in some ways, not so much in others." They trio arrived at the elevator.

"Insight bay." Fury told the elevator.

"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for project insight."

"Director override: Fury, Nicholas J."

"Confirmed."

There was a beat of silence as the elevator started descending.

Fury looked at the warframe. "... I don't recall giving you clearance."

"I don't recall whether we hacked for clearance or just don't get detected by your sensors."

Steve bit his lip to hide a smile and looked out the window. Fury just looked a bit miffed. They continued down in silence.

There was a brief flash of green as they passed ground level, then the elevator went dim as they went underground. Steve was looking the other way, but the Vauban immediately spotted them.

"Those are some big sticks. I think you lost the ability to talk quietly."

Then Steve caught sight of them.

Fury looked at the grey and orange warrior. "You were just reading about the American Revolution last week."

"Director, I'm always reading."

Fury saw Steve's expression and started his spiel. "This, is project Insight. Three next generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites. Once we get them in the air they never need to come down thanks to their new repulsor engines."

"Stark?" Steve wondered aloud.

"Yeah, he had a few suggestions. Said they were offshoots of another project he was working on."

Steve quickly shot a glance at the warframe, he had a feeling he knew what that other project was.

"These new precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute." Fury elbowed the warframe. "Give you a run for your money, eh? Gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they can happen."

"I thought the punishment came after the crime." Steve said with a frown.

Fury's serious face was back on. "We can't afford to wait that long."

The warframe spoke, it's voice laced with something Steve couldn't identify. "Who's 'we'?"

"After New York I convinced the world security council that we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. Banshee helped bring a lot of problems with the current system to light. For once, we're way ahead of the curve."

"By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection."

Fury frowned at Steve's comment. "You know I read those SSR files. Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff."

The Vauban made an exaggerated snorting gesture. "I'm not there yet in the history books, but I can guarantee that neither of your generations has anything on what the Orokin Empire did. Fury, remind me later and I'll send you an abbreviated history. But I can tell you right now. This is definitely a step down the path they followed."

"Oh really? And what happened to them?" Fury said, skepticism evident in his voice.

"They gained immortality. Then got killed off." The warframe turned to look up at the nearest helicarrier. "Trust me when I say I'm looking in a mirror right now."

"I'll take that as a compliment, your kind are possible the greatest military force ever known." Fury said, voice dripping with cynicism.

The warframe ignored him. "Never make a system unless you are willing or capable of dealing with the entirety of that system bearing its weight against you."

"That won't happen. SHIELD takes the world as it is. Not as we'd like it to be. I thought you'd have realized that."

"How things are and how they should be are indivisible. Speak to me when you understand the meaning of my words." The Vauban then turned, gave Steve a brief glance, and stalked of, twirling a strange metal ball in one hand.

* * *

Tony woke with a start to JARVIS's voice. "Sir, we are approaching the moon. We are on schedule and will begin the designated search pattern shortly."

"Belay that, I wanna do a victory lap around the Moon."

"That will put you back several hours."

"Do it anyway, and do a cursory visual scan while you're at it." Tony sat back and watched the Moon, wondering what kind of structure he would come across. The technology required to create a building on the Moon was significant, if he could begin to analyse it, it could send humanity forward several decades, if not centuries. The thought put a hop in his step.

"Sir, I've got something."

"Put it on screen." JARVIS pulled up the image. From this distance the thing was quite small, but definitely not as small as it should have been. "JARVIS, what am I looking at?"

"A structure roughly 14,500 meters in height, most of which is under the surface, made of an as of yet unsynthesized material. The appearance of the structure seems to have displaced a large portion of the lunar surface, leading to several 'floating mountains' and deep chasms in the nearby landscape."

"Analyse the thing, I want to know more." As JARVIS ran the battery of tests Tony had set up, the billionaire went to do a check up on the suit. He donned the suit and opened the door to the airlock and stepped inside. Pushing the big red button, he began the exitting sequence, he would be opening the outer door just enough to shunt out the remaining air, not enough to actually fit through though. He had tested the suit in the best vacuum he could make on Earth, but that could never really compare to the real thing.

All readings were good. He closed the outside door and repressurized the airlock.

"Sir, I've run all the tests l, most material analysis came back inconclusive. Other than it being metal, we know nothing about this tower."

"Alright, any idea how far it's scanning range is?"

"I'm detecting a basic tracking system for objects near the tower, but no long range scanning abilities."

"Understood, bring the ship in low and out of range, I'll go in in the stealth armor." Tony had taken a queue from the helicarrier and fitted an airtight armor suit with both optical camo panels and solar panels. The thing looked pretty intimidating, all told.

"Bringing the ship in, estimated landing time in thirty minutes."

* * *

As the tower loomed closer and closer, Tony took a moment to observe it. JARVIS' analysis hadn't said anything about what the thing looked like, and boy was it something to look at.

The tower was white as paper, and consisted of a single huge spire with two sets of four protrusions staggered halfway to the top. Brilliant golden struts supported the protrusions and a series of entirely separate egg shaped constructs that were attached in various orientations all along its length. There were even a couple of them crashed on the ground near the base of the tower. Gold also accented the tower itself, with huge filigrees and colossal arches gracefully curving and twisting around each other.

"JARVIS, what is the gold portion of the tower for?" Tony asked the AI.

"Based on the initial inconclusive scans, the gold part seems to be entirely aesthetic, the design would seem to indicate that the structure was meant for a extreme g environment, whether zero or high g is uncertain."

"Alright, bring the ship in to land, I'm going from here on foot. Any obvious points of entry?"

"Two or three. I will mark one on your HUD sir."

Tony stepped back over to the airlock, and began the air cycling for a real exit. As the air exited the small airlock Tony felt the heating system kick in. Once clear of the quinjet, Tony launched himself in the direction of the tower.

As he approached, Tony was struck by how incredibly ostentatious the place was. What was assumed to be an entrance was marked on his helmet UI. It was almost buried among all of the debris floating around, but a landing pad and walkway into the rock were still visible. Getting closer revealed that 'entrance' in this case meant a dozens of feet tall circular door that, when neared, opened automatically in an intricate rotation and splitting of the two halves. Beyond it was a grand entrance way consisting of a wide bridge leading to a tall and thin door. Gold and white were everywhere, along with an ominous white noise of distant singing voices.

"This place is incredibly pristine." Tony spoke, recording his thought process while investigating. He engaged the optical stealth and continued on.

And nearly tripping right into a hole in the floor.

"Spoke too soon." He said, backing away. A second look showed the hole wasn't deep but slanted down to the left, underneath the remains on of of the room's two doors. The other lead directly into a gap between what should have been the outer wall and the rock it was built into. A faint pale blue light emanated from the hole in the floor, so Tony decided to check there first.

"Jarvis, can you tell me what happened to these plants?"

"They appear to have been crystallized through an unknown process. This space appears to be unnaturally cold, so the root may be some sort of cooling system."

"Or it's an information and power system with built in cooling."

"That is also a possibility."

Tony attempted to obtain a sample, but the built in drill on the suit could not even scratch it. Even breaking off a portion of the small bush-like clusters of smaller vines eluded him. Tony decided to pass them by for now and continue on.

Continuing on, however, only revealed more and more gold and white. The sound of running water drew his attention into the room just beyond where he was greeted by the first living thing he'd seen while here. A small dais protruded from the floor, and on it was a dark blue plant. Tony reached out to feel the fronds, noting that there was no real soil underneath it, just moon sand.

"Amazing, something that can survive on its own, without sunlight, for… Jarvis, how old is this thing?"

"Sir, carbon dating puts it at somewhere around three hundred and fifty years old."

"...three hundred and fifty years."

"...eeeeeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."

At the sound of the voice Tony dropped into a crouch. Creeping forward through the next door, he saw who, or what, had spoken.

It was, in a word, alien. The first impression was blueness. The thing hovered a couple of feet off the ground. A continuous droning almost-voice echoed through the room. It paused, in a flash of blue-white light a nearby corpse disappeared into digital smoke. Now that he really looked, Tony saw the room had more than a dozen such corpses scattered around, some half drifting in the many pools around the rim of the room, others outright missing more than one limb.

"Sir, the wounds that these people suffered match with observed warframe weaponry. They were here."

"Yeah, but what is that in front of us?"

"Attempting to scan…"

The thing immediately ceased the vocal droning noise and, turning to face the genius, folded in half vertically and lanced upwards through the ceiling at a phenomenal speed.

"Sir, I'm detecting-" JARVIS was interrupted by incoming alarms. Tony barely dodged a sizzling yellow-orange projectile.

"Yeah, I got it!" Tony told the AI. He turned to get a look at what shot at him but his vision was quickly filled with a tornado of batons. He launched himself backwards and out of the way. He wasn't quite quick enough to dodge the next shot though, in less than a minute his suit's stealth functions were trashed and the suit itself was on its last legs. He'd managed to shear an arm off of the baton one and one of the gun ones, but they each just picked up the _wrong_ arm and attached it to themselves and began to glow purple. After that the shearing laser didn't work anymore. With the repulsors no longer doing any damage either the suit was out of offensive abilities.

"What the hell are these things." Tony asked himself, throwing himself sideways to dodge another shot. The things didn't stop to gloat, Tony was used to things gloating when trying to kill him. These things just kept shooting. Tony dodged once again, only this time he landed badly against a wall. The baton thing was already tornado-spinning from one direction and the shooter that hadn't switched its arm out had shot from another.

He wouldn't make it.

He shut his eye, hoping against hope he could launch upwards in time.

Then several things happened at once.

First, his thrusters gave out, shooting adrenaline through his system. Second, a steel gray and gold blur dropped down from above and right into the path of the tornado. With a loud BANG the blur, -a Trinity, according to his HUD- stopped the thing in its tracks with what what looked like giant horseshoe gauntlets. Third, another warframe vaulted the railing and locked one of the shooters in place with some sort of bubble and gunned it down with a double barreled shotgun. The trinity exchanged blows with the baton-wielder, pushing it back a few steps before backflipping away and slamming its hand down on the ground.

A wave pulsed out and Tony felt all his wounds instantly close. Before he could stand though the baton thing had been disarmed and beaten into the ground. The trinity then turned around and grabbed Stark by the arm and threw him up onto a higher balcony. He tumbled into an upright position and looked down, ready for action.

He did not expect a disco party to be going on below him. The remaining shooter had balled up in the air and a blinding light was radiating outward in the form of multicolor lasers, which the warframes had jumped upward to avoid as well. They stayed still as they waited, one clinging to the wall near him and the other standing in one of the pools around the room. His suit informed him the other warframe was a Mag and Tony turned to the yellow and blue warrior.

"What are those things?!" He asked, out of breath. The warframe didn't even spare him a glance. It tensed and threw itself downward, just as the lightshow came to an end. Two quick pulses from the Mag and the Trinity pulled out a bulbous pistol and put several shots into the thing before it could fully recover from whatever attack it had just used. With that, the fight was over.

Tony sat down heavily, the only audible noise was his breathing. He looked up at the two warframes, who were now standing over him. "Sorry for showing up unannounced. I didn't think your place would be this… unaccommodating."

The Mag wandered off.

The Trinity made an exaggerated sighing motion and gestured for the billionaire to follow.

After a long moment of silently walking and listening to the odd singing background voices, the warframe spoke. "To answer your question, those are sentient fighters."

"Those things were intelligent? Wait. Are?"

The warframe nodded. "Are. Though you misunderstood. Sentient is the name of their… species? Faction? It is a noun in this case, not an adjective. In any case, those were Battalysts and Conculysts, foot soldiers, or their equivalent."

"Each one of those was worth an entire squad of humans. And they're just cannon fodder?" Tony asked, shocked.

The warframe shrugged, an oddly familiar gesture given the alien circumstances. "They are what we were meant to fight. You are lucky. Those were already crippled from both the origin jump to get here and the switch between universes."

They passed through an incredibly tall room with what looked like huge organ pipes. Tony whistled as he craned his head. "Who built this place?"

"The Orokin. They're tastes were… interesting."

"Who were they?"

The warframe took a moment to respond. "They were the highest castes of the Orokin Empire, which spanned the entire ori- solar system. So far from what we'd recovered there were Archimedeans -the scholars-, Executors -judges of some description-, Dax Soldiers and finally the Seven Emperors themselves. The empire's umbrella covered numerous independent cultures, of which we were one of the better off. There is too much more to explain. Here." There was another pause as the continued walking.

"Sir, I've received an incredibly large amount of data from the tower. It will take several weeks to read it all. Would you like me to start sorting through it?"

"Do it." Tony told the Ai.

Tony went back to observing his surroundings. "Are those floating gold things solid?"

"Yes."

"They're phasing through each other, how can they be solid and do that?"

"I don't know."

"Helpful."

"Much of what we once had is now lost."

They passed through several more halls and rooms before the warframe brought him to a stop in front of a large pool with numerous white crystalline root-things sprouting from the center. A hum emanated from the roots like they were giant wind chimes that had just come to rest.

"What are we here for again?" Tony asked.

"...Nothing. Just reminiscing." The warframe began to walk again.

"There should be five of you here right? Where is everyone?" Tony was getting impatient with having to ask all the questions.

"Stark, you came here for information on our technology, not to ask for our whereabouts. We've made ourselves obvious enough to track as is, and you came here thinking your genius could sort through this place in a couple of days. You will find yourself thoroughly underprepared to grasp what it is you are dealing with."

"And what exactly is it that I am 'dealing with'? Because I have yet to see any evidence of things beyond comprehension. Those roots are a material I haven't heard of, but I'm sure I can create it if I tried. I synthesized an entirely new element by myself! I hacked one of the most secure facilities on Earth on a high school dare. So tell me, what exactly am I unprepared for?"

The room temperature dropped several degrees and a new voice spoke.

"The void is a nightmare for men of science like you; in the blinding hellspace reason fails utterly. The origin of our powers is not something to be trifled with, as it's vast indifference will crush a mind such as yours like a tank rolling over a dust mite." A regal dark grey warframe -a frost this time- with purple metallic accents arching over its head walked purposefully up the stairs on the other side of the pool. "You are here, Iron man, because SHIELD is in the process of self destructing, and we wanted you out of the crossfire." The warframe stopped at the top of the steps and placed one hand on its hip, the other loosely holding a straight sword point down. "And," The warframe continued. "you are here because I have business with you."

* * *

"Open secure line 0405."

"Confirmed."

"This is Hill."

"I need you here in D.C. Deep Shadow conditions."

"...Give me four hours."

"You have three. Over." Nick pulled up and stopped at a red light. A brief glance to the right and he did a double take at the cops in the car next to him.

They were just... staring.

He just gave them a look and asked. "You wanna see my lease?"

They just bleeped at him and drove off.

And then three other cars rammed into the sides of his van.

"Fracture detected." The car's computer droned. Another large black van pulled up and started spouting soldiers. "Recommend anesthetic injection. D.C. dispatch shows no units in this area."

Fury has a second to look down the barrels of no less than 8 different assault rifles and other assorted guns before they started unloading into his car. "Get me outta here." Fury commanded the computer.

"Propulsion systems offline."

"Then reboot dammit!" The armor integrity number was going down fast, and the bullet storm just kept raging on outside. After a solid minute of munitions, there was a pause just long enough for Nick to catch sight of the _next_ attempt to break the car.

A fucking ram. Nick dove into the passenger's seat.

"How long to propulsion?"

"Calculating."

BOOM! The car rocked to the side. Thank God he was on the other side of the car.

BOOM! The car rocked again. "Deploying countermeasures." The computer's happy/neutral voice chimed in.

"Hold that order."

"Window integrity at 19%. Offensive measures advised."

"WAIT."

BOOM! "Window integrity at 1%."

"NOW!" a turret popped out of the center console and Fury went to town. He mowed down everyone within sight of the window and fired a grenade at the black van for good measure.

"Propulsion online."

"Full acceleration!" Fury kept shooting.

High above, an eyeless visage looked on with curiosity, wondering if Fury would make it out alive. Poisonous purple tendrils shook as the warframe they were attached to cocked their head at the spectacle. When Fury's car sped off, it soundlessly leapt from building to building, keeping pace with the high speed chase from the safety of the rooftops. What the tenno did not expect, however, was the car to flip end over end after rounding a corner. Teli immediately zeroed in on the man standing in the middle of the road. He had a heavily modified gun in one hand, and the other… was metal. This set her on edge but she didn't hesitate to drop down, landing lightly on the belly of Nick's car. She pulled out her redeemer and readied for a fight.

...

The stranger didn't appear swayed by the presence of a new player on the field. After all, the target was in the car, likely pinned and unable to move. Closer inspection however, revealed that the new player was actually not wearing a suit, but _was_ a suit. And not one of Stark's either. No matter. Coming at someone like him with a fat sword like that wouldn't do much to his arm, and his gun would take care of anything else. He aimed and fired.

BAM BAM BAM -tink tink tink.

The bullets hit the concrete on either side of the vehicle. The creature stood unharmed. The newcomer was now a hindrance to the mission and must be eliminated. He continued walking, winding up his arm, he threw the first punch.

THUD. The impact he felt through his body armor was impressive to say the least. The spindly creature executed a series of acrobatic flips, each spin sending bullets flying towards him. Protecting his face with his metal arm he ran for cover.

The mission just got longer.

* * *

Matariel was in his orbiter when Teli hailed him.

"Help requested." She said. He felt over the void connection that she wasn't worried per se, but it was a fight she wasn't quite prepared for. A brief image of the assailant flashed over the connection. He readied an Atlas, Braton prime, Bronco prime, and Cassowar and flew at high speed toward New York.

The creature put up a valiant defense of the Director, but it was futile. That blast of sound it emitted was troublesome, but ultimately it's (her?) blade...gun was knocked out of her hand he had her by the throat before she could pull any more weapons out.

He only realized he had been hit _after_ bouncing off a car and through a truck. The soldier clutched his head and looked up.

Another one. When had the first called for backup? He hadn't heard her vocalize at all, most people would make some sort of noise when hit by an enhanced metal arm or when being choked to death, but she hadn't made a sound. No matter. The mission was to kill the Director, who was trapped in the car. He stood as the newer newcomer slammed his fists into the street, sending rocks flying everywhere… and forming into a 10 foot tall rock monster. The soldier gunned it down without hesitation. If the second enemy was as weak as the first then he would still complete his mission. Kill the Director, who was trapped in the car.

 _The second enemy was not as weak as the first._ The soldier thought as he slid along the concrete after another brutal blow. He flipped himself upright and slowed himself with his metal arm. The newer enemy was already on him though, suppressing him with a machine gun. He ducked behind a car and returned fire.

A flash of purplish light and the car launch upward, scorch marks covering it underside. As he dove for cover again he caught site of the first enemy holding a blocky bow and arrow with no string. The bow flashed and he had to abandon his cover once again. Slowly working his way forward, he threw shot after shot their way, only to have them thrown back tenfold. The mission was becoming harder by the second. The mission to kill the Director, who was…

No longer trapped in the car.

Mission objective no longer in sight. Whereabouts unknown. Hostiles are no longer hindrances, disengaging. Requesting location of target…

* * *

AN: Again, my sincere apologies for the lag in uploading this, hopefully I didn't lose too many of you. Also, I'm trying to keep the chapter lengths consistent, and failing. Do I go for much longer less often uploads of 5k~ words or more often uploads closer to 3k~? Or do I just say fuck it and go with what feels good? You tell me!

I'm beginning to notice these characters are running away from me a bit. I plan for the story to do one thing and then the characters just kinda NOPE into another direction. It's a weird feeling, but I think that means I've actually created independent characters and am not self-inserting, which is good.

Follow, review, stuff.


	10. Teli Is Tired of This Sh-

AN: Steve's Guardian Angel has to go take a drinking break and Teli picks up where it left off. Also action sequences are strange to write.

* * *

"Peter? ...Peter."

"What? What do you want Ne- woah you're not Nezha." Peter looked up from his homework at the warframe now standing in his room. It wasn't Rain. It was the other one from the alley and it could not have been more physically different. Broad shoulders seemed to fill the room and a blank visage stared back at his surprised face. The shocked silence prompted the warframe to continue.

"I'm here on his request. He- we, wanted to make sure you were safe."

Peter just glanced at his homework with wide eyes. "I- uh, I'm fine, thanks. Where is he then?"

"On the moon."

"What."

"Doesn't matter. The point is, you need to stay down for the next few days. We've taken steps to erase your presence but if you do anything hero related now we won't be able to stop them from coming after you, and, by extension, I won't be able to stop our mutual friend from doing something stupid."

"I can't just stop helping people, if they get hurt it's my fault if I don't do anything." Peter said, a bit indignant.

"Irrelevant, I will keep you down myself if I have to. Stark nearly has enough evidence to figure you out for himself. He is already plenty aware of Spiderman the hero and he has files on all promising up-and-coming minds, including yours. If he sees those two files at the same time he will figure it out and we won't be able to stop him. The best we can do now is distract him. Which we can't do if you're active. I-" The warframe tilted its head, massive neck muscles visibly contracting. "I must go. The ball is about to start rolling and we will have to be prepared for the fallout."

"But. What? I-"

Peter's eyes crossed looking at the finger an inch from his face. "Stay. Down."

* * *

"Understood. On my way." Matariel said, and closed the void channel. Teli returned to her spot by the window of the apartment, listening to the music Fury was playing. It sounded pleasant enough, but not her speed. She looked at Fury where he was seated in the chair. He had refused any tenno healing because it would have fixed his eye, which for some reason he needed to keep the way it was. So there he sat, bleeding into the fabric, and here she sat, waiting for Rogers to show up. With a thought she contacted her ship cephalon.

"Extracted data?" Teli asked.

"When it entered our system it rewrote itself into oblivion. The coding can't last outside of its intended habitat. Which right now is only in the device in Fury's possession, STUPID THING.

Teli looked up when Steve came in through the window. Odd. And paranoid. Poor humans without enemy sense. Steve walked right past her, unable to see through her prowl. He peeked around the corner, saw it was Nick, and relaxed against the wall in exasperation.

"I don't recall giving you a key."

"Do you really think I'd need one?... My wife kicked me out." Teli tossed her head instead of snorting at Fury's line. She got up and slowly approached the Captain from behind.

"A lot of things you don't know about me." Fury continued. Steve went to turn on the lights, but Teli stopped his hand and put hers on his mouth. Before Steve could make a sound Fury showed him his phone's screen.

EARS EVERYWHERE.

IVARA IN THE ROOM.

Steve glanced down at the invisible hands on his mouth and wrist. Fury continued talking. "Sorry to have to do this but I had no place else to crash."

SHIELD COMPROMISED.

Steve's eyes widened in understanding. "Who else knows about your wife?" He asked.

"Just, my friends."

YOU, ME, AND THE TENNO

PUH-TOOM. PUH-TOOM PUH-TOOM. Bullets pierced the wall and went straight through Nick's chest. Flooring him instantly. Steve lurched forward, soldiering instincts telling him to get Fury out of the line of fire. He dragged the director around the corner, trying to put as many walls between them and the shooter as possible. Before he could chase after the shooter, Fury grabbed his arm, the grip was weak, but Steve still felt the irregular shape in Fury's hand. He looked down and saw it was the drive the Natasha had had on the Lemurian Star.

Teli decided now was the time to exit, if that agent next door saw her, she would be obligated to report it, not knowing any better.

Fury coughed up blood. "Trust. No one." And he was gone. Steve looked up and saw the window close sharply, but the sound was masked by the sound of the apartment door opening.

Teli climbed around the building, on alert for any more gunfire. The sound of glass shattering told her Steve had busted through a window and was in pursuit.

* * *

Steve ran across the roof, busting through a door, off the wall, through another door, denting another wall, through _another_ door, and finally through a window and onto the roof of the adjacent building. He rolled to disperse the impact and transferred his weight into throwing his shield. The metal disk flew and record speed, and slammed straight into the shooter's _metal arm_. A whirr of gears and the shield came flying back at him.

SLAM.

Something dropped out of the sky and landed on the shield, pinning it to the ground.

A warframe, but not the Ivara. This was the grey and orange one. It drew an strange rounded pistol and fired four quick shots in the shooter's direction, but the enemy was already gone. The warframe bounced the shield into its hand with its foot and tossed it the Steve.

"We thought Fury thought he would be safe with you nearby. I guess he was wrong." The alien warrior said without an ounce of remorse.

Steve caught the shield and asked. "Who was that?"

"Don't know." The warframe shrugged. "He came after Fury this morning but we beat him off before he could get to him. Come on, we should accompany him to the hospital." The warframe stepped past Steve, who blinked. The thing was a few inches taller than him, and Steve hadn't been shorter than someone else for a long time. Suppressing nostalgia, he followed.

Steve considered his words carefully before speaking as they walked. "So… SHIELD is compromised."

"Fury said to trust no one. Ears everywhere."

"Were you there for that part? I don't remember you being there." They approached the door to the stairs, but the warframe walked past it and to the edge of the roof. Steve raised an eyebrow. "What? Too good for stairs?"

"Too fast for stairs, Fury's life is in danger, in case you hadn't noticed." As if to punctuate, Steve heard the blaring sound of an ambulance.

Steve waved his hands in surrender. "There's nothing I can do about it. Whether I get there in five minutes or ten the doctors will be working just as hard. Besides," A sad look crossed his face. "I'm not too eager to see my neighbor right now."

"Mm. To answer your earlier question, telling one of us something is the same as telling all of us. That doesn't mean we can't keep secrets from each other, just by default we don't."

"Fury also said you knew about SHIELD."

"Before even he did."

Steve rounded on the other warrior. "What?! You knew and you didn't do anything?"

The response was cold. "Think. If we had done something about it, how would it have looked from the outside? A small group of alien warriors suddenly kills of hundreds of innocent humans? Didn't you say that punishment comes after the crime? We cut down the weeds once they show their heads, not before."

"But why didn't you at least say something?"

"What could we have said? The only proof we could have given you you wouldn't be able to understand or trust. Now come on, you should be there for him, regardless of your disagreements." With that the warframe disappeared into the air on a pair of wings.

Steve turned and began jogging back down to his motorcycle, the flash drive heavy in his pocket.

* * *

When Natasha entered the room, the warframe turned to see who it was, but Steve didn't. She spared the tenno, who was now clad in the Vauban warframe once again, a glance while hurrying toward the glass pane between them and the operating room.

As they talked, Matariel studied the operation with quiet attention. This kind of medicine was foreign to him and he was curious about how it worked. Back in his somatic pod, he began pulling up information about the tools and techniques being used, the info played itself rapidly over his HUD, too fast for a normal human and many tenno, but it was fine for him.

They started shocking the body. Matariel looked at the others in the room, who were all in various states of shock. The doctors went to inject something into his neck, which the HUD identifies as… oh.

Oh.

Matariel tapped into Hill's earpiece. "That was well played. I don't think anyone could have survived being shot like that." He told her. She turned to search his face, only to be met by a blank metallic orange visage. The doctors had given up. Steve quietly left the room, Natasha seemed to recover from the verge of tears and stared blankly through the glass. Nick's body was taken from the operating room to be prepared. Matariel removed himself from Hill's earpiece and spoke to Teli. "Ivara, I want you to follow Rogers and company. Any further action is up to your judgement." He felt more than heard her acknowledgment as she switched her attention to Rogers.

They all went to see Nick's body. The only thing not strange about it to the tenno was the sterility. Keeping him under a sheet was odd. Matariel caught Teli staring intently at the body.

"You see it too?"

"Yes."

Natasha blew past them, unable stand the sight any longer. Steve went after her and Teli prowled after him. She made it outside in time for Steve to get called in to SHIELD for questioning, and quietly made her exit. Matariel had explicitly mentioned Steve, so she chose to follow him, leaving Black Widow to her own devices.

* * *

"Captain."

"Neighbor." Steve addressed the agent curtly. _Seriously. All this time…_

"Oh. Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce."

Steve shook the man's hand. "Sir. It's an honor."

"The honor's mine. My father served in the 101st." Together they entered the room. The rooms was in the process of being cleared out for whoever would take over Fury's position. Steve listened as Pierce told a story of Fury going against direct orders to rescue dozens of people.

"So you gave him a promotion?" Regardless of right or wrong, Fury was promoted for disobedience, which left a bad taste in Steve's mouth.

"I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, why was Fury in your apartment last night?"

That question again. Steve tried harder this time. "I don't know."

"Did you know it was bugged?" Steve nodded.

"Did you know he was the one who bugged it?" Steve didn't have a response for that. Pierce continued. "I want you to see something." He pressed a button on a remote. "Your warframe pals tracked him down in a safehouse and brought him in last night." The screen showed Batroc strapped to a chair in the presence of three agents and a brown and green female warframe with a huge head crest arching back and away over her head. The warframe nodded at the camera, somewhere off to Steve's right. Steve froze. _There's a warframe in the room._ He immediately tried to play it off.

"You think he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line."

Pierce didn't seem to notice his slip. "No, no. It's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star through 17 fictitious accounts, the last of which was registered under a Jacob Veech, who died six years ago."

"Am I supposed to know who he was?"

"No, but his last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive, Fury's mother lived in 1437 when I first met him."

Steve's eyebrows shot up and he pointed at the screen. "You think Fury hired him? Why?"

"The prevailing theory was it was a cover for the sale of classified intelligence, but he deal went south and that resulted in his death."

It took a second for that to sink in. "If you knew Fury, you'd know that's false."

Pierce's eyes lit up. "Why do you think we're talking? I took a seat on the council because Nick asked me to -I didn't want to, but I did it anyway. We were both realists, we both knew that there was a point, no matter how far off, where diplomacy, words, fail. It's then that you must get your hands in the dirt and build something new. The idea that those who have the nerve to call you dirty when you do could be happy today, makes me very, very angry." He sighed. "Captain you were the last person to see Nick alive. I don't think either you or I think that's a coincidence. So I'll ask you again: Why was he there?"

Steve steeled himself. "He told me not to trust anyone. I'm sorry, but those were his last words."

Pierce didn't seem resigned. "I wonder if that included him."

"Excuse me." Steve walk toward the door, grabbing his shield on the way.

"Captain. Somebody murdered my friend and I'm going to find out who. If anyone gets in my way they're going to regret it." Pierce's eye narrowed. "Anyone." Steve left without another word.

Entering the elevator Steve made sure to take slightly longer to walk through the door than normal to give the warframe time to enter as well. He didn't even feel it brush past. He told the computer to head to operations control so he could read some reports on other possible missions.

Just before the door closed a hand swept through, revealing Rumlow and a couple other STRIKE team members. They told the elevator their destination and settled in for the awkwardly quiet elevator ride.

"They found something in Evidence Response, should I ready a team? Or...?" Rumlow broke the silence.

"Let's wait and see what it is first." Steve told him. "Don't want to get riled up over nothing." Suddenly he felt an invisible hand on his wrist. Slowly, deliberately, it slid upwards, past his elbow and up to his shoulder, where it disappeared toward the ceiling. Steve idly wondered what it was supposed to mean. _I guess they're on the ceiling now?_

Several people in white coats entered the elevator.

"Alright. Hey, I'm sorry about what happened to Fury. It's messed up is what it is."

Steve gave a noncommittal grunt.

A couple of huge guys, including Rollins, in combat getups entered the elevator. Steve eyed them. The white coats gripped their briefcases tighter.

Some other members of STRIKE team entered the elevator. Steve looked around at the now packed elevator. He noticed that there was a gap between him and everyone else present. He let out a quiet sigh and briefly looked up to where he thought the warframe was hanging.

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to get out?"

A beat of silence, then Rollins activated his electric baton and went for the stab. Steve kicked him back, suddenly everyone on the elevator was shoving him against the wall. Steve struggled, but one of them detached their briefcase handles and wrapped it around his wrist. It magnetized, pulling his arm toward the wall as he tried to get out of their grips.

A _twang_ vibrated through the elevator and everyone dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Another _twang_ and Steve could see the pale green outline of Ivara standing in the middle of the elevator. Looking down at his hands revealed he was covered in the same green outline but was otherwise invisible. "Can't they see this?" He asked, picking up his shield and breaking the magnetic band on his arm with it.

The outline shoot its head. "Allies only."

"Allies?..."

"Whitelist."

Steve nodded. He opened the door to the elevator, only to be greeted by two dozen marines with their guns pointed at the door. "Drop your shield! Put your hands in the air!" Steve tensed, ready for a fight, but the soldiers just looked confused. The one who'd shouted looked slightly embarrassed.

"The window." The warframe said, exceedingly quiet.

"I can't jump. It's too high, even for me." Steve told it, just as quiet.

"I have a zipline."

"They'll notice."

"I have a distraction." The warframe almost sounded annoyed at having to speak this much. The marines were approaching to investigate the apparently empty elevator, however, so he needed to act fast.

Steve counted down. "Three… two… one… now." He swung his shield, just as an incredibly distracting noise sounded off down the hall. All the marines turned to look but Steve did his best to ignore it and saw an arrow fire out into the distance, attaching to the roof of the building below. The line was rather steep, but not unbearably so. So he grabbed one of the briefcase handles and hooked it around the zipline before jumping out.

As he slid, Steve barely had enough time to think about how strong the line was, despite being only as thick as heavy grade fishing line before he let go and crashed through the glass ceiling of the building below, he ignored the screams of people around him and used his shield to take the fall. He sprinted full speed through the building toward the garage. The warframe didn't seem to be nearby, and he didn't have an earpiece to contact them with, so he pushed thoughts of them from his mind and focused on getting to his motorcycle.

* * *

After barely making it through the garage door and fighting his way past a quinjet it was a miracle that he was able to vanish as well as he had.

He was beginning to realize that that sort of thing was commonplace when warframes were involved.

What was _not_ a miracle, however, was the lack of USB in the vending machine, or Black Widow showing up, chewing on some bubblegum.

"Where is it?"

"Safe."

"Do better."

"Where did you get it?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"Fury gave it to you. Why?"

"What's on it?"

"I don't know."

"Stop lying."

"I only act like I know everything Rogers."

They both stopped when the room's temperature dropped several degrees. They both looked over to see the poison green and purple Ivara standing out of sight of the door.

"Later." The command left no room for argument. The warframe vanished again and the two humans left the building.

As they walked, Natasha elaborated. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't think he exists, the ones that do call him the winter soldier. He's credited with over a hundred assassinations in the last fifty years."

Steve had to remind himself to keep walking. "So he's a ghost story?" he asked.

"A few years ago I was tasked to protect an engineer in Iran. Someone shot out my tires and we went straight off a cliff. He was there waiting for us. I was covering the target so he shot him through me. Soviet made, no rifling, just like what went through Fury. No more bikinis." Was that hint of disappointment in her voice?

"That must be real hard for you."

"Take it from my experience, going after him is a dead end. He's a ghost story." They continued walking. Natasha seemed to know where they were going so Steve just followed her.

After a moment of silence Steve asked. "Where do you think _she_ is?"

The super spy didn't even have to ask who he meant. "I'd wager she's up high. She had a bow and arrow strapped to her back and a very prominent optical… whatever it is they have. Likely she's made for ranged combat support. I have to applaud them sending her. She's a perfect complement to our MO."

"Yeah well something tells me she's here to watch, not help." Steve looked up at the approaching mall. "Why are we here?"

"Open computer access. Don't want to plug this thing into anything important." She said, waving the USB in front of his face, and letting him take it when he went to snatch it from her.

Once inside the nearest Apple store she immediately got to work. "There's a serious homing program on this, some they'll know where we are in about…" She plugged it in. "Nine minutes."

"Fury thought someone was trying to hide something using the ship- ah, the drive is protected by an AI. It keeps rewriting itself. It's almost like… nope, I've got nothing. Let me try something else. If I can't find out what, then I can find out…"

"Hey, can I help you with anything?" _Oh god an employee._

"Actually sir, I have a couple of questions." A quiet British voice from across the table distracted the employee. He glanced back, but Steve waved him toward the girl. Steve looked over long enough to catch a glimpse of bright green hair and earrings before turning back to the computer.

"Got it. Wheaton. You know it?"

"I used to, come on."

* * *

"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?"

"Nazi Germany - take your feet off the dash- and we're borrowing it."

"...Alright. I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer, but not answering kind of answers it anyway-"

"What is it?!"

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

"That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"It sounds like that's what you're saying."

"No, no. I was just wondering how much practice you've had. Everybody needs practice."

"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety five, not dead."

"Nobody special though? I find it hard to imagine Captain America not being able to find anyone." Black Widow looked over with a wry smile.

"Well when you're this old shared life experiences are hard to come by."

"Well you could make something up."

"Like you?" It wasn't meant to be biting, but there it was.

"The truth isn't all things to all people all the time Steve. Neither am I."

"Difficult way to live."

"Easy way to not die."

"It's hard to trust someone when you don't know who they are."

"Well. Who do you want me to be?"

Steve took his eyes off the road. "How about a friend?"

She gave a light chuckle. "You might be in the wrong-"

BLAM

They both started as the truck rocked slightly back on its wheels. They desperately looked around, trying to find the source, and it took them a moment to spot the shadow of a handprint on the back windshield. It was no more defined than the shadow of a cloud, but it was there.

The two heroes looked at each other. Natasha was the first to recover.

"Speaking of friends…"

* * *

AN: And so my attempts at regularity in uploading continues to... well not quite fail per se, but anyway. College is back on, so keep that in mind if for some reason I go a bit without uploading.

Ugh how the hell are you supposed to balance the power of a warframe against the Winter Soldier? Like, any one of them could put him down with minimal effort. Can you imagine what would happen if Bucky took an opticor round? No more Bucky. I mean maybe vibranium could deflect it, but blocking with an arm is kind of null when you can just aim down at the last second.

Anyone else really confused about how Captain America managed to disappear after fleeing the Triskelion? Like damn, they have cameras everywhere and Steve would have had to stop somewhere to change clothes right? I didn't notice until I wrote this and now it's irritating me.

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	11. Secrets Secrets Are No Fun

AN: Alright, I'm settling into a more regular upload schedule. I'm thinking Mondays, with there being maybe 3-4 chapters between now and where I'm currently writing. Five if I push the envelope.

So continues the story!

* * *

Natasha gave the place a once-over as they drove up to the gate. Decrepit fences, rusted, well, everything, old war feel…

"This is it." Steve said.

"The file came from these coordinates." Natasha told him, putting the phone back in her pocket.

"So did I." Steve said, more to himself than to her. Natasha just looked at him. "This camp was where I was trained." He explained. He wrenched open the gate, thinking about how he never would have thought such an action possible before the serum.

"Well let's see how much it's changed." They entered the premise as the sun was setting, but it was dark by the time they found what they were looking for.

Steve looked at the munitions building and frowned. Natasha saw this and asked. "What's wrong?"

"Army regulations forbid the storing of munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks." Steve pointed to a nearby bunker-like building. "That building is in the wrong place."

Natasha let out a snort.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just imagined the building getting up and walking around."

"Stranger things have happened."

"Too true."

Steve cracked the lock and they were in.

The first thing they noticed when Steve flicked the lightswitch was the giant SHIELD Logo on the wall behind rows of computers.

"This used to be a SHIELD facility?" Natasha asked, running a hand over one of the incredibly dusty chairs.

"Maybe the first." Steve thought out loud.

They began searching, but found nothing in the big room, so they moved to the doors in the back. The first revealed a large number of file cabinets, and Black Widow made a mental note to come back and peruse later. The next door revealed a smaller large room filled with bookshelves and desks, probably an officer's area. Three prominent paintings faced the door with varying degrees of stoicism. The first was obviously a General. The second, and least stoic, was

"Stark's Father. Who's the girl?" Natasha asked. Steve said nothing and continued on. But the third occupant in the room placed a metal hand on her shoulder. She twitched at the sudden contact, but otherwise didn't react. A ghost of a word reached her ear.

"Alive."

The hand, and presence, disappeared. Leaving The super spy wondering. She looked over to see Steve fixated on one shelf in particular. She noticed what he noticed: the cobwebs were moving. Steve grabbed the edge of the shelf and pulled.

"If you're already working in a secret office…" He said over the sound of rusted sliding metal. "Then why hide the elevator?" They walked over, Natasha immediately going for the keypad and Steve pretending he knew how the device she used worked. He looked back and noticed that there were four sets of footsteps in the dust.

"Ivara, did you bring a dog?"

There was a pulse in the air and two outlines showed themselves; one was the now familiar outline of Ivara, the other the size of a great dane, lean and powerful, with pawprints somewhere between a wolf's and a lemur's. Steve blinked and they were gone. The elevator creaked into place behind them and they got in.

Steve felt a wet nose on his hand and looked down into intelligent yellow eyes. The... dog… thing… was huge. It had to bend its head down in order to sniff the back of his hand. It flicked an ear and its head whipped around. The elevator dinged.

More dark room greeted them, only this time, the lights turned on without any switch flicking. The group stepped forward, approaching the newly lit console in front of them.

Black Widow frowned. "This can't be the data point, this technology is ancient." Steve gave an ironic snort and Teli eyed the setup warily. Closer inspection revealed a device much more recent and decidedly not as covered in dust resting on the desk.

Naturally the logical course of action was to plug that trackable USB into the unknown machine to see what would happen. They started when more lights came on. The hum of machinery filled the previously silent room.

"IniTIate sYsTem?"

"Y-E-S spells yes." Natasha typed in. The hum changed pitch. A devious look spread over her face. "Shall we play a game?" She smiled as she turned to face her companions. "It's from a movie that was really-"

"I know, I saw it."

"I haven't." The heroes both looked at the warframe. Or at least where the voice of the warframe came from.

Steve turned to Black Widow and, thumbing a finger at the warframe, said: "Is this what it feels like…?" Natasha nodded and was about to say something but was interrupted.

"Rogers, Steven. Born 1918." A small camera above the screen turned to face Black Widow. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984."

"It's some kind of recording." Natasha said to herself.

"I am not a recording fraeulein. I may not be the man I used to be when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." The last two words held more weight in them. One of the secondary screens showed a picture of a short elderly man in glasses.

At Steve's face Black Widow had to ask. "You know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years."

"FIRST correction: I am Swiss. SECOND: Look around you. I have never been more alive! In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, but my mind… that was worth saving, on two hundred thousand feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Rogers asked.

"Invited."

Something clicked in Natasha's head. "It was operation Paperclip. After World War II SHIELD recruited scientist with… strategic value. Von Braun, Strughold, Gehlen…"

"Zola?" Steve supplied.

"Correct, Captain. They thought I could help their cause, but I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull."

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

"Prove it."

"...Accessing archive. HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom they resist." Images and videos from the war flashed on the many screens. "The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you."

A quiet voice spoke. "HYDRA _is_ SHIELD" A playback of Zola's voice sounded from thin air. "'For seventy years, SHIELD has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed.'"

"Correct. I cannot see you but it doesn't matter who you are." Zola seemed perplexed, but continued. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. All that stands between HYDRA and total domination is a simple purification process." The screens flashed images of the Insight helicarriers. "We won, Captain. Your death amounts to, the same as your life: a zero sum."

CRACK

An arrow sprouted from the camera lens. "An arrow? How unusual. I am aware of Agent Barton. He does not have optical disguise abilities. I must say, the fourth occupant of the this room would have intrigued me greatly. As I was saying, Project Insight requires... insight. So I wrote and algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm, what does it do?" Natasha interrupted.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." The doors behind them closed before anyone could react. A new voice erupted from both Black Widow's phone and Teli's void comms.

"Operator! There's a -DEATH BOMB- high penetration missile headed your way! Protect yourself!"

"Who fired it?"

"...SHIELD."

"I'm afraid I have been stalling Captain. Admit it. It's better this-"

"Burn it out." Teli commanded her cephalon, before putting arrows through every single speaker on the console. The face on the screen morphed into one of confusion, its glasses cracked and Zola began to shake apart and was replaced by a strange prism before going dark completely.

Steve and Natasha dove beneath a grate in the floor, Teli, now visible, an instant behind them.

The explosion shook them, even several dozen feet underground. In seconds the ceiling had cracked and tumbled down on them. Or would have, if a bright green bubble hadn't sprung up around them. Steve looked up from under his shield. Natasha, firmly held close, did the same.

Several smaller chunks of the bunker had fallen and hit the vibranium shield, and several much larger pieces had been deflected around them, but the biggest were still held aloft. They didn't get time to see what was producing the barrier though because the dog-thing was urgently pulling on his wrist. They left with the sound of quinjets rushing in behind them.

* * *

Kneeling on top of a nondescript dam Matariel felt the urgency from Teli like a physical pain. She was channeling a vazarin technique that made her location fairly obvious to anyone paying attention. She didn't want any to help her though, so the others reluctantly stood down. They trusted her ability to get out stealthily. That being said, "Teli, once you're out, I'm tagging in, come to this location and run data interference for the Captain and Black Widow."

"Fine." Came the short response.

Switching off the void channel Matariel turned to the other tenno present. "I'm sending you off the radar here. Be careful."

"If you want my opinion, they are a warrior culture. It would be wiser to approach them with respect, not espionage."

"We aren't approaching them at all. We're tracing an outline. The fact that Simaris didn't immediately mark them for investigation means he straight up didn't _see_ them. That is some serious isolation. Walking in the front door is a less than appetizing idea."

"But why me? Equinox is a much more capable data handler."

"You are our premier ambassador, I want information coming through that lens."

"...Alright." Siren said, calling her landing craft. "But I'm going to talk to them when I'm done."

"Whatever you think prudent." Matariel responded, also calling his landing craft. The two craft, one an arrowhead, the other reminiscent of a fish, angled down toward the edge of the dam, lining up in sync and spinning their holding slots open for the tenno. Without another word the warframes got in and lifted off.

Below them, Maria Hill looked on in no small amount of wonderment. After a beat of silence she turned back inside. She walked through the concrete hallways, past a couple of guards and technicians, and through a white curtain.

"They're gone." She told a bedridden Fury. He just grunted in acknowledgment. "Sir, is it wise to trust them? They called our plan without even blinking and told me in a way that wouldn't have given it away to others."

"It is precisely _because_ of their ability to do that that we can trust them. Much as I am loath to admit it, they are, without exaggeration, singularities in the field of force projection." Fury stopped for a bout of coughing. "Once we finish with this business I fully plan on relying on them and their electronic allies for our intel. At least until we can reestablish something of our own." More coughing.

"Get some rest sir, I can't have you getting any worse after all this effort."

"Yeah, yeah." Fury closed his eyes. Maria got up to oversee some equipment they would need for upcoming operations.

* * *

"So you're saying you know who this Spider-kid is inside the mask? Well, tell me."

"I'm saying out clan leader knows who he is. We've been training him to better fight the fight he feels he needs to. Leader's the one who tracked Spiderman down. Any one of us could go to where he lives at any point and find out for ourselves, but I've decided to respect his wish to remain unknown. The others simply don't care." Rain sighed behind his mask. This man was being difficult. They were in one of the information vaults, the one with a huge open space in the middle with the small glass chamber opposite the entrance. Their voices echoed uncomfortably in the still place, which did a decent job of keeping Tony from talking excessively.

"I'm not sure whether I should be more interested in your ability to track down and see through just about any deception on Earth, or concerned that you knew SHIELD was HYDRA and didn't do anything about it." Tony didn't look at the warframe when he spoke, but continued to view the many holograms floating about the empty space showing various places and people from around the world.

"To be fair, we didn't know what HYDRA was. We just learned that there was a _thing_ that wasn't SHIELD inside SHIELD. And there were some rather long strings attached." The frost readjusted its position on the blindingly white couch. "If I were you I'd be more concerned with SHIELD. Both our clan master and resident Quill Instrument predict that Cap will have SHIELD's head for this."

"And what does Fury think of this?"

"Fury is dead right now. But I'm pretty sure he still thinks he can salvage whatever is left over after Captain's romp through the place." Rain directed Tony's attention to one of the holograms, showing Fury lying on a hospital bed in a place that most certainly _wasn't_ a hospital. Tony's question was preempted by Fury twitching awake and give a couple of orders to someone off screen.

"If all this is going down, why are you keeping me here?"

"We aren't keeping you here. We simply wanted you distracted enough that events could play out as they needed to. When a Quill says something needs to happen, we make it happen."

"You're baiting me to ask. I'm not going to."

Rain simply shrugged and stood up. "Fine." He walked over to the door. "You may leave whenever you want. But know that we do plan to send this tower back to our home reality. Its abilities will be put to best use under the Quill's stewardship. Your window is limited. We do have a spaceship for the ride back, however, so use that whenever you're done smacking your head against the wall."

Tony didn't say anything, just continued to watch the dozens of screens floating about the room. Rain chuckled to himself and left. Outside, he met with the judging gaze of a bright blue and yellow Gara. "Well," Rain asked. "Did that accomplish what it was supposed to?"

Glass tinkled as the warframe joined him in walking. "Myriad unfavorable consequences closed to us today. That conversation was unknown to the Quills and the Unum, we are beyond her sight. Risk of uncontrolled propagation and decay is high, and I am but an instrument. Though… a new force has made itself known to me. Perhaps it can be of use. I will observe and analyze."

"Frost. This is Nyx." Gemma's voice spoke over both their void channels. "You are required for the final expulsion of the Corpus forces on tower level zwhong-sal. Proceed to point sahd-sal for insertion."

"Acknowledged. Well. Let's go do stuff." Rain patted Sandon on the glass pauldrons and blitzed away, leaving nothing but a spike of ice that quickly sublimated away. Sandon starred after him for a whole minute before locating the nearest place to meet up with his landing craft, he had time, so he set himself a leisurely pace and strolled away.

* * *

Back in the vault, Tony stood, motionless.

"JARVIS. Search through the data they sent us. Keyword: Quill."

* * *

AN: Yeah this was short. But it felt complete, so I didn't want to mess with it. Especially considering what's next.

For those of you who care, college classes are going to start doing their best to get in the way of writing. I do have a decent amount of down time, but it's college, so what can you do?

I also keep running into things I want to say here but then I forget. Annoying.

Don't forget to review! Discussion is a thing people do sometimes. It seems fun.


	12. Birds of a Feather

AN: I'm not dead I swear.

Ok maybe a little bit.

Ever patient Guest: I kinda have to give direct credit to this guy. Who after I hadn't posted in 2 weeks asked when the next part was coming out. He the real MVP that inspired me to post. He's a guest so I can't call him out by name, but you know who you are.

* * *

Just a normal day, started out jogging, got me some OJ, Captain America knocks on my door looking battered and bruised with an incredibly attractive, but just as beat up red head.

Normal.

"Hey man…" Sam left the obvious question unasked.

"I'm sorry about this. We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us." The haunted look on their faces didn't leave much choice, so Sam let them in, checking to see if anyone was watching.

While they washed Sam took a moment to steel himself. _Captain America_ was in his house for shelter. It was early morning, so they probably hadn't had breakfast yet. Start with that. He walked over to the kitchen and started cracking eggs. He didn't even register the sound of an aircraft passing over until it stopped passing. After about thirty seconds of strait noise Wilson took the pan off the oven and made for the bathroom.

"Guys, there's an aircraft hovering outside. What do we do?"

The redhead, who had been introduced as Natasha, froze, listening. Steve looked to her, ready to move if needed, but it was unnecessary.

"That's a warframe landing craft." She said. "That's good."

"A who now?"

"Go let her in. It's probably the one from earlier." Steve stepped back into the bathroom and threw the towel he was using in the hamper. Sam just shrugged and went to go let whatever it was inside.

He didn't see anyone at the door though. "Hey?" He yelled back toward the other two. "I don't see anyone out there."

"Doesn't mean anything. Open the door." Came Natasha's voice. Sam did as told. The moment the door opened he was greeted by a grey, white and orange horned visage that would give nightmares to a normal civilian.

Good thing Sam wasn't a normal civilian.

With a manly yelp he jumped back, bringing his arms up protectively before seeing the pair of pistols on its hip, and what looked like a submachine gun strapped to it back next to a massive sword. Hands would be useless.

Steve walked into the awkward silence. "Oh. Loki. You're not Ivara."

"I am not. She's mucking about with their data network so they don't find us."

"Why are you here instead of her?" Natasha swaggered in, hair still damp.

"Because I'm more talkative. We need to make plans, and doing so is hard when our representative only speaks in one word sentences."

Natasha nodded in understanding and sat down in one of the chairs around the breakfast table.

"A-and no one is going to address how this guy is talking without a mouth?" Sam managed to stutter.

The warframe pulled a small metal ball from behind its back and held it up for examination. "These are able to project our thoughts into voice and handles translation, since this language is not our native one."

"Oh so yall are some sort of international force?"

"Try interdimensional."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Oh. I'm, just gonna go back to making breakfast." He turned back to his eggs.

"Real question is," Natasha said from her chair at the table. "Who at SHIELD has the authority to order a domestic missile strike?"

"Pierce." Steve responded.

"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world."

"But he's not working alone. Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."

Natasha's eyes lit up. "So was Jasper Sitwell."

Steve nodded. "So the real question is how do the two most wanted people in D.C. steal a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?"

The warframe crossed its arms. "We're just going to ignore the fact that there's a space ninja in the room?"

"We're not ignoring you. I still have moral reservations about relying on you for eliminating our problems." Steve said, giving the eyeless warrior a sideways glance.

"Plus on your last official mission your kill count was in the hundreds."

Sam nearly burnt himself on the stove. "Woah. What?!"

"Completely silent too. There weren't any bodies to recover afterward."

"It _was_ a stealth mission." The warframe shrugged.

Sam pulled his jaw up off the floor and tossed the egg he'd just burned into the trash before leaving the room.

"Anyway..." Steve drew the word out to make sure everyone was paying attention. "Our best shot is to go after Jasper. How do we do that?"

"The answer is," Sam said, reentering the room. "You don't." He threw down a folder on the table titled 'EXO-7 Falcon'.

Natasha looked over Steve's shoulder. "I recognize this, that mission was you?" Sam nodded in response. "They couldn't bring in helicopters because of the RPGs, I thought it was a pararescue."

"What'd you use?"

Sam turned the page for them. "Those."

Steve looked up at him. "I thought you said you were a pilot."

"I never said pilot."

"Touche. Look, I can't ask you to do this. You got out, asking you to get back in like this-"

"Dude, _Captain America_ needs my help. There is no better reason."

Steve marveled that he had that kind of influence for a moment before squaring his shoulders and going into leader mode. "Where can we get our hands on one of these?"

Sam looked him in the eye. "The last one is in Fort Meade behind three guarded gate and a 12 inch steel wall."

Steve and Natasha shared a look. "Shouldn't be a-"

 _Thunk_

They all jumped at the door slamming shut. In the silence that follow Black Widow heard a quiet ticking. They slowly turned to see the egg timer counting down from twenty minutes. Then they noticed the warframe was no longer in the room.

Sam looked between the two heroes. "Does that mean what I think it means…?"

Natasha sat back in her chair. "Probably. I guess we sit back and wait."

Running a hand over his short hair, Sam sighed. "Is this gonna be a normal thing?"

"I think so." They sat in silence for a minute. Steve sat forward.

"Do you have any bacon to go with those eggs?"

"OH. Yes I do." Sam reached for the fridge.

* * *

Eighteen minutes later, they heard the faint roaring of an alien engine outside as they finalized their plan. They had received information on Jaspar's location minutes after the Loki had left and since been planning their kidnapping. Sam went outside to greet him and came face to face with a much, _much_ more advanced version of his wings.

The warframe hovered a few feet above the ground, two great engines attached to its lower back emitting a soft hum that was felt more than heard.

Sam caught the case that was thrown his way. And continued to stare at the wings.

"Why do we even try? I feel incompetent next to that." Sam said, pointing at the machine.

The warframe detached itself and dropped to the ground. "Aw, don't be like that." The warframe patted him on the shoulder. "I ask myself that question all the time. You are quite a prideful people, but as a friend if mine once said: it's important for there to be human heroes for the people to aspire to be like."

"Yeah, I don't think aspirations can bridge the gap between this," he gestured to his case, "and that." He gestured to where the wings had disappeared into the sky.

"Not a chance. Now let's get this thing ready for deployment."

They stepped back inside, laying the case on the breakfast table. Steve looked up from where he was reading the newspaper. "You got it?" He asked.

"I got it." The warframe replied, walking over to the kitchen and-

 _DING_

turning off the egg timer. The others in the room didn't need to see a face to feel the satisfaction rolling off the warframe in waves.

Sam blinked. "They kept this thing in good condition, all that's needed is to make the adjustments for actual operation, like the straps and such." He slung the big pack over his shoulders and set about making personal adjustments, occasionally asking Steve to help out here and there. Natasha walked in while they were at it, taking the procedure in without a word.

"The guy who killed Fury is known as the Winter Soldier, he's almost as scary as you guys when it comes to mission success."

"I'm not surprised. His gunplay could use a bit of work though, along with his fluidity in combat. He was terribly stiff."

"Wait you _fought_ him?" Natasha tried to hide her shock.

"We're the reason Fury got to the Captain's house in the first place." The warframe waved it hands and sat cross-legged in mid air. "Give me a minute please, I need to think."

Sam glanced over. "Oh _and_ they can freaking float too. That's real nice." He pulled on some straps for emphasis and locked them in place. "Alright, that's everything. We should get going, our window on this guy is limited."

* * *

Their departure briefly passed through Matariel's mind as he meditated.

"Simaris. Have you compiled what I asked for?"

"I have, Tenno. I have transferred the information to your codex, along with an active connection and presence on the internet. You now have a finger on the pulse of all information regarding tenno activity one Earth."

"Do I have an alias or do I get to make one up?"

"I have given the alias the name Uscias, as I felt it appropriate."

"Associated with the Sword of Light, it does seem appropriate." Matariel began to sort through all the new places he could, looking through for any and all signs of warframes on the web. Wow, his thumb really was on the pulse.

He prepared to press down.

* * *

The door slammed open and Jasper Sitwell flew out onto the roof, Captain America and Black Widow stepping out after him.

"Tell me about Zola's Algorithm."

"Never heard of it."

"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?"

"I was throwing up. I get seasick." Sitwell hit the rim on the edge of the building and gasped, stumbling slightly. Steve stopped him from falling, but just barely. "Is this little display meant insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof?" Jasper smirked. "Because it's really not your style, Rogers."

Steve looked him dead in the eye and threw him a disarming smile. "You're right." He said. "It's hers." Natasha kicked Jasper square in the chest. Sending him screaming over the side.

"Oh, wait. What about that girl from Accounting, Laura…?"

"Lilian. Lip piercing, right?"

"Yeah, she's cute."

"Yeah. I'm not ready for that."

Falcon swooped overhead and dropped Sitwell back onto the roof, still screaming. As the pair approached Sitwell held up his hand in surrender. "Zola's algorithm is a program… For choosing… Insight's targets."

Steve stepped right to where Jasper kneeled on all fours."What targets?"

"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA." He paused for breath. "Now, or in the future."

"The future? How could it know?" Steve asked.

Jasper gave out a laugh. "How could it _not_?" He stood, more confident now. "The twenty first century is a digital book. Zola taught Hydra how to read it. At their blank looks he continued. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, email, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past… to predict their future."

"What then?" Steve asked.

Jasper seemed to realize something. "Oh my God. Pierce is gonna kill me." But before he could go into a panic attack Steve grabbed him and shook him.

"What then!?"

Sitwell steeled himself. "Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time." The three heroes looked at each other, then as one, bolted for the car, dragging Sitwell with them.

* * *

Sam swore the accelerator and Jasper's mouth were tied to the same pedal. The faster they went, the more he ran his mouth.

"HYDRA doesn't tolerate leaks." Jasper had been talking like this all ride long.

"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam snapped back.

Natasha and Steve, on the other hand, just ignored him. "Insight's launching in 16 hours. Don't you think we're cutting it a little close?"

"We are. We'll use him to bypass any DNA scans and get to the carriers directly. With any luck, we'll be able to-"

"What? Are you crazy?" Jasper interrupted. "That is a terrible, terrible idea. Do you know what'll happen to me if-"

Jasper was in turn interrupted by a loud _thud_ on the roof of the car and a metal hand bursting through the window and throwing Jasper into a passing car. Natasha dived into Steve's lap. Steve, for his part, slammed the car into park. This sent their assailant sliding away in front of them. They made eye contact with dark goggles and a face mask. Natasha immediately pulled out her pistol, but lost it when a huge jeep slammed into them from behind. Sam tried in vain to steer them off the path toward the Winter Soldier, but couldn't. In moments, the car had flipped, ejecting them out onto the highway.

Steve caught sight of one of the goons handing the Winter Soldier a machine gun with a grenade attachment and threw Natasha out of the way just in time. The impact threw him off the overpass.

He didn't feel the crash through the window of a bus.

* * *

Matariel sat back on his perch high above the fight. He smoothly pulled out his Lenz and lined up a shot on the Winter Soldier. He sorely wanted to release, but he had been warned by Sandon not to. So instead Matariel settled for disrupting the firing line they had set up. Adjusting his Nekros Prime's grip, he let two shots fly. They landed just as he'd wished: either end of the line. Most of the goons didn't have time to react, and those that did experienced searing cold before losing whatever limbs they couldn't get clear in time. Both shots completely missed the Soldier, who dived for cover and tried to locate where the shots had come from. Matariel dropped from the top of the building, landing gracefully beside the bus Steve had -less gracefully- landed inside. Most people ran at the sight of the faceless warrior, but some didn't. Matariel lifted his hands into the air and with a pulse of void energy triggered every civilian within a hundred meter's flight reflex. With non combatants safely fleeing the area, Matariel turned back to the bus.

Steve twitched, but still wasn't quite conscious. Matariel stepped into the overturned bus and placed a hand on Steve's shoulder and dragged him into an upright position against the ceiling of the bus. "Sorry Captain," Matariel told the unconscious man. "This will hurt." And he punched.

* * *

Steve awoke to a jarring impact and an incredible feeling of vulnerability. Like when your about to fall asleep but then jolt awake because you think you're falling. Only a hundred times worse. He bounced to his feet and glanced around for his shield, spotting it through the bus's windshield. He made to get it, but was stopped by a hand on his wrist. He turned to see the Nekros standing beside him. It mimed listening; putting a hand to where a human's ear would be. That was when he heard the whirring of a gatling gun over the receding screams. The warframe pointed to itself and then up, and gestured to Steve and then toward the shield. Steve nodded. He held up three fingers. Three. Two. One.

The Nekros threw itself into the air, pulled out a pair of pistols with huge magazines sticking out of the top. In less than a second a hailstorm of bullets had gunned down the gatling wielder before he could fire more than a few harmless shots. Steve dove out the front of the bus and grabbed his shield, somersaulting into a crouch behind it, just in time to block shots fired from the top of the bridge. He glanced back to see the Nekros had ducked back behind the bus to reload. Deciding to give it some breathing room, he charged the remaining gunmen. Natasha had made it to the ground at some point and they came at the enemies from opposite directions.

"Sam's up there by himself." Black Widow said in the middle of someone over her shoulder. "Can you get to him?"

"I can't jump that high." Steve said back, then he caught sight of the Nekros sprinting towards them. Steve, thinking the Nekros planned on using him as a lift, prepped to throw him. He placed his shield over his shoulder and prepared for impact.

It never came.

Looking out from behind the shield revealed the Nekros had standing high jumped well above the overpass and was firing down on anyone left up there. He landed out of sight, and all the two heard were gunshots and the occasional swear from Sam. The gunshots however were quickly replaced with the sound of hand to hand combat. Following a particularly nasty sounding exchange and a hollow _whoosh_ , concrete exploded farther up the road. The two watched as a figure flew over and down, bouncing through two cars and finally stopping in a dent on the street. It stood up, metal arm gleaming in the sunlight. In the exchange he had lost his mask and goggles, but the distance was too great to see the Soldier's face. The Nekros then launched itself after him, brandishing a set of braces over its hands and feet that pulsed with energy. The soldier charged and met the warframe's punch mid-air with his own. The closest cars skidded on their tires a few inches. Steve and Natasha ran toward the fight to help. They watched the Winter Soldier throw the Warframe hard, sending it flying toward the nearest building, but instead of smashing through the windows, it stuck there, defying gravity as it drew back on a huge bulky bow with no string. An energy shot flew and the Winter Soldier dodged easily toward the two heroes. That's when Steve caught sight of his face.

"Bucky?" He almost shouted.

The Soldier turned to us, keeping one eye on the warframe. "Who the hell is Bucky?" He asked and pointed a gun at the two, but Sam pulled the trigger first and the resulting explosion hid the Soldier from view. Steve turned to yell at Sam to stop, but was interrupted by the squeal of tires and the wail of car sirens. In moments, they were surrounded.

"GET ON YOUR KNEES." That was Rumlow. With a gun to his head Steve had no choice but to comply. The warframe, however, had no such compulsion, and simply stared at the man who told him to stand down. The Nekros managed to convey derisiveness through posture alone. It zeroed in on the man holding a gun to Captain America's head and pointed one of his pistols between his eyes.

Rumlow stood and faced the warrior. "The warframes answer to SHIELD. Stand down." The warframe did not change its stance. "I said. Stand. Down."

"Foolish, humans. We did not make our deal with SHIELD. He is dead, so the deal is off." The voice was gravelly, had a heavy russian accent, and most certainly did _not_ come from the warframe. Out from the scattered cars rose the remains of the Winter Soldier's entourage, they stepped with purpose. They advanced in unnatural sync, weapons held unerringly forward. Strike team readied their weapons.

BAM. BAM. BAM.

Twenty one shots, twenty one kills, though it only sounded like three. A blinding flash emanated from the warframe and all Strike team members not dead on the ground fled in abject terror.

Except one.

"Ugh." A familiar voice said. "This helmet is squeezing my brain." The remaining soldier removed her helmet, revealing the face of Maria Hill. Not, missing a beat she thumbed toward where Sam stood up on the overpass. "Who's this guy?"

* * *

"So we had this whole thing planned out where I would be in the van you guys were being held in, and I'd take out the other guard then cut a hole in the floor, it would have been great. But of course the warframe saw through me immediately, So here we are." Hill finished, turning back to the road. The group was in one of their trucks, Natasha was laid across Sam and Steve's laps to avoid any prying eyes. She turned her head slightly and Steve resolutely ignored the blood seeping into his outfit in favor of keeping pressure on the wound.

"Where are we going?" Romanoff asked.

"Safe house. You need to rest." Maria told her.

"How long?" Steve asked with a worried look at his teammate.

"Less than an hour."

The group drove on in silence.

* * *

Steve didn't question when they pulled up near a dam. He didn't question when the warframe walked ahead like it had been there before, or the faint outline hovering silently above the place. No, the questions started when they were ushered into a room with a medical bed sat squarely in the center, with Nick Fury lying semi-conscious on it with his arm in a sling and attached to _way_ too many monitors.

"It's about damn time." Fury said to their gaping faces. "Tetrodotoxin B." He continued by way of explanation. "Slows the pulse to one beat per minute. Banner developed it to combat stress. Didn't work out so well but him but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not just tell us? The warframes don't look surprised. You told them, right?"

The Nekros shrugged. "To be fair Captain, it's kind of hard for us to look surprised when we don't have faces."

"They figured it out almost as soon as the plan went into action." Maria said. "But to the outside world any attempt on the directors life had to look successful."

"Can't kill you if you're already dead." Fury said with a touch of cynicism. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." Steve glanced sideways just in time to catch Natasha's crestfallen look.

* * *

The slap resounded through the metal room.

"Mission Report." Pierce said impatiently.

The Winter Soldier didn't seem to hear him. Visions of the blond man with the star shield running through his mind. "The man on the bridge. Who was he?"

"You met earlier this week on another assignment."

"...I knew him."

Pierce, with difficulty, reigned in his temper. He pulled over a chair and sat down, deciding to hear this one out. "Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to do it one more time." Pierce stopped to regain eye contact. "Society's at a tipping point between order and chaos and tomorrow we're gonna give it a push. But, if you can't do your part I can't do mine. And HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

"... But I knew him." As if that invalidated everything Pierce had said. Pierce sighed in defeat and stood up.

"Prep him." When a scientist began to protest Pierce continued. "Wipe him and start over."

He didn't stay to hear the screams.

* * *

AN: Muck Fidterms. 'Nuff said.

Worry not I have finished writing the Winter Soldier arc. Ugh this is irritating. I want to talk about what I'm writing but that would be all out of order and stuff.


	13. Exploding Explosions Explode Explosively

AN: Here we are! Another Chapter!

I feel happy that so many people like this story! It's gratifying.

Now for the bad news.

I've hit the end of my back load of content. I do not have the next chapter anywhere near finished. Right after I got into the swing of this publishing thing too. I'm sorry, but fair warning the next update might not come for a while. From now on the upload schedule will be as such: If I update, it will be on a Monday, but I will not update every Monday. I don't want you checking for updates every single day, since that only worsens the wait, so you only need to check on Monday.

On that sobering note, on with the story.

* * *

Steve followed the sound of metal through the concrete halls under the dam. In an empty room not too far from Fury's he found the Nekros going through a complex series of combat maneuvers with the strange brass knuckles-and-toes that weren't actually made of brass. Steve would have thought the warframe was practicing that breakdancing thing that came up while he was under the ice, but the severity of the cracks in the walls and floor suggested otherwise. Steve waited for a pause in the routine and coughed for attention. "We're meeting to come up with a plan to bring down project Insight."

"Alright."

"...What's wrong?"

"I'm irritated." Another spiderweb of cracks appeared on the wall.

"... Why?"

"The others finished purging the Lua- _Lunar_ tower of any remaining threats a while back. They were the last vestiges of any sort of challenge in this universe. We've had to hold back for the entirety of our stay here, it's starting to wear on me."

"Yeah? Maybe bring down a couple of helicarriers will bring a bit of satisfaction."

"Non-zero possibility, but I doubt it. Sabotage missions against humans are rather dull."

"What were you fighting before?"

"Xenophobic clone army, profit worshipping roboticists, a hive organism bent on consuming all life, and self replicating terraforming machines bent on genocide of the human race." The warframe punctuated its sentence by putting its fist through the wall.

"That's… an impressive list."

"I guess." The Nekros removed its hand from the wall with a crunch, and faced the super soldier. "Let's go."

* * *

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." Fury threw down the photo of Pierce. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

Natasha spoke up. "We're here to stop the launch, not talk about your personal issues."

"I don't think the council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury's voice was edged with sarcasm. He pulled out a briefcase with three chips stored inside. Maria took over explaining.

"Once the carriers reach three thousand feet they'll triangulate with Insight Satellites, becoming fully weaponized."

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own. One or two won't cut it, we _need_ to link all three for this to work, if even one of them remains operational, we won't be able to keep up with the casualties." Fury leaned back in his chair. "Assume everyone on board those carriers is HYDRA. Get past them, insert the blades, and MAYBE we can salvage what's left of-"

Steve let out an irritated groan. "We aren't salvaging anything! We aren't just taking down the carriers Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with this."

"SHIELD and HYDRA are indivisible." The Nekros spoke up for the first time that meeting. "Attempting to separate them would be like separating black and white sand. Unless you feel like interviewing every single agent and source of information individually and hoping you don't judge them incorrectly, it is best to simply burn it all to glass and turn it into a reminder against future folly."

Steve nodded in agreement. "SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. SHIELD, HYDRA. It all goes."

"He's right." Maria said, and nodded. Fury looked from her to Natasha, who didn't saying anything, and to Sam, who simply shrugged.

"Don't look at me, I do what he does, only slower."

Fury sighed in contemplation. "I guess I'm no longer giving orders." With that, the meeting was over. Nekros tilted its head, then left the room.

* * *

Matariel stood outside and looked out at the green forest. He opened up a channel to all seven other tenno. "The humans have their plan, but they missed a lot. I'm opting to cover for their mistakes. Anyone else care to join me?"

"What is your plan?" Polis asked.

"What did they forget?" That was Theris.

"They made no plans to eliminate the satellites. I was thinking we take that portion of the mission, as well as purging the algorithm Insight uses to designate targets."

Sandon spoke up. "The algorithm approaches that of the oro reading abilities of the Orokin. Purging the humans of it pulls them away from the Orokin's path. Should we let it be, others will be able to use it for their own ends. No actors that result from leaving this should be allowed to exist."

"... Well _that_ puts an end to any argument." Rain spoke, but he seemed distracted. "I abstain from interfering though. SHIELD still fulfills its intended purpose when dealing with common criminals and bringing it down will see a spike in lawbreaking. I suggest we be ready to deal with that."

Matariel took this into consideration. "Then I propose this: There are twelve satellites. Two of us bring them all down. I will go with the Captain and bring down the helicarriers while everyone else positions themselves to counter the crime spike that will follow." No one voiced opposition, so Matariel continued. "Who will bring down the satellites?"

"I will." Both Theris and Polis spoke simultaneously.

"Very well, everyone else, coordinate and position." Matariel closed off the channel and went back to gazing. Noticing absently that Steve had walked off to go somewhere. With an inward sigh, he called his dropship, already running loadouts in his head.

* * *

"Attention all SHIELD agents. This is Captain America." The voice rang out through the Triskelion. "You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down." He paused for breath. "But I think it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was. It's been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don't know how many more, but I know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want. Absolute control. Project Insight was made to eliminate all threats to HYDRA, not SHIELD. They shot Nick Fury when he figured that out. And it won't end there. If you launch those carriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone who stands in their way unless we stop them. I know I'm asking a lot, and I could be alone in this, but I'm fighting anyway. The price of freedom is high, always has been. I'm willing to pay it, and I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one."

Sam stepped up after Steve let go of the button. "You write that down first, or was that off the top of your head?" Steve just gave a noncommittal shrug.

* * *

Matariel listened to the speech as he snuck through the halls of the Triskelion with his Huras kubrow: Halcyon. He was still in his Nekros frame, but this time loaded out with his Zenith, Lex Prime and Kesheg. Approaching a major communications room, he triggered the Zenith's headshot radar and looked through the adjacent wall. Through the open door he heard Rumlow's voice.

"Preempt the launch sequence. Send those ships up now… Is there a problem?" Matariel didn't hear the response. "IS THERE A PROBLEM?"

A timid voice responded. "Sorry sir, I'm not gonna send those ships up. Captain's orders." A smile briefly tugged at the tenno's face before it was wiped away by the _click_ of a pistol.

"Move away from your station." Rumlow again.

More clicks and suddenly everyone in the room was shouting. Many of the head shot indicators dropped off the HUD and the rest were painted red. A standoff, then. Matariel picked a target and waited. After what must have felt like hours for them a woman grunted and the shooting started. Wasting no time Matariel began dropping the red indicators one by one, but before he finished Sandon's voice burst over comms.

"Hold! Actor seer-sahd necessary to control consequence. Do not fire." Matariel just barely managed to twitch in time to send the shot awry. The marker paused, before continuing to flee. Matariel decloaked and walked into the room. All eyes, and guns, were on him in a second. The tenno raised his hands in a placating gesture.

"Coroneer, please explain the situation to them."

"Alright - **YOU FLESH BAGS** \- the operator just saved you all so you better respect him. SHIELD is now defunct, Captain's orders. We are here to assist. Who is in charge?"

Everyone in the room looked toward a blonde woman. Matariel noticed the blood dripping from her hand. She must have been the one who confronted Rumlow. She extended her hand. "Agent Carter." She said. The warframe shook her hand and turned to leave.

"Coroneer, repeat back to them: I'm going to assist Captain America. Can I trust you to manage things here?" The woman nodded. "If you want my advice: leave. This schism makes it impossible to tell friend from foe until shots are fired. We will be hunting HYDRA down at a later date, but until then, if you decide to stay, you will be killing fellow SHIELD agents. Coroneer, bring me my Odonata. Keep a presence in this command room in case communication is needed."

"Understood." Matariel felt the floor beneath him shudder ever so slightly. He looked out the window to catch sight of the river opening up in front of the Triskelion. Huge panels lifted themselves up and slid away, revealing the Insight helicarriers. To anyone observing, the warframe would have looked like it sighed before pulling out a huge staff and smashing the window open with the blunt end and jumping out the resulting hole.

 _These idiots._ Matariel thought to himself as he fell. His archwing caught up with him from above and latched on with practiced ease. He pulled out of his dive just above the water and zoomed a ways away from the fight to get a full view. The three ships were already above the water and were training their guns on… something.

Falcon.

Several quinjets were lifting off as well and moving to pursue. Matariel pulled out his Velocitus and lined up a shot. Breath in, Breath out.

* * *

BOOM

Sam flinched, causing an unwanted dip in his flight path as something bright blue-green lanced across the Potomac and through three quinjets before embedding itself in helicarrier bravo. Five of the remaining jets peeled off, leaving Sam to deal with just two. He swerved through the many grounded jets, trying to lose his pursuers. It didn't work but it did give him some cover.

BOOM

Another quinjet on his tail went up in flames.

 _Even dealing with five times what I am he still finds time to show me up._ Sam focused on diving and twirling, keeping out of the lines of bullets trying to catch up with him. _This is taking too long. What if I…_ Sam eyed the glass dome that made up the belly of his assigned carrier. The decision was made for him when a volley of rockets lept from the quinjet. Sam banked hard, aiming for the glass dome. He cut his engines and closed his wings just before impact, missing the transparent surface by a hair. The glass erupted and after a tight loop Sam was inside.

"Alpha lock." Steve said over his earpiece.

"Sam, what about you?" Hill asked.

"Had to take a detour, Bravo lock."

* * *

Explosions on the Triskelion tarmac drew Matariel's attention away from the removal of the last quinjet's wing via his Centaur blade. From here the gleam of a metal limb was visible, and Matariel had to suppress the urge to pop the guy from here. Steve knew him, and wanted him to be well. It was his responsibility to bring him down. Another two quinjets exploded and a third took off.

A voice spoke over the tenno's comm system. "I am on approach, do I have a clear path?"

"Aye, Fury. I have eyes on the last jet, but it seems to have eyes elsewhere."

"Understood." The black helicopter landed without issue, and Nick Fury stepped out. He made it into the building without incided and Matariel promptly forgot about him in favor of a very appetizing group of HYDRA agents fighting a group of SHIELD agents on the bridge. Quick as a thought he broke the HYDRA line with a hail of missiles, covering the bridge with a spiderweb of cracks and littering it with bodies. After making sure the SHIELD group had a commanding officer, Matariel sent them to provide backup to Agent Carter.

"Sam, I'm gonna need a ride."

"Alright, let me know when you're ready."

Matariel heard an explosion both over comms and from the deck of helicarrier Steve had been assigned first. "I just did." Matariel caught sight of Falcon swooping down to catch a falling Captain. They made it up onto the last helicarrier, only for Steve to immediately get knocked back off. Falcon made to save him from falling again, but instead had a wing ripped off by a metal wire and also getting kicked over the edge. Matariel saw him fall, saw the second wing detach, and watched the parachute open with a critical eye.

"CAP! Cap, come in." Sam said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Still on the helicarrier. Where are you?"

"I'm grounded. Sorry Cap."

"Don't worry. I got it." Steve disappeared into the depths of the helicarrier. With one last glance in his direction Matariel dove for the roof where Sam had landed. He met Sam on his way to the door leading inside.

"Sam, Rumlow's headed for the council."

"Alright I got it." Sam turned to the warframe. "I got him, you go help Cap." He got a nod in response and was rocked back on his heels from the gust of wind from the archwing engines as the warframe blew toward the last carrier.

* * *

Steve faced the other soldier. "Don't make me do this. I don't want to fight you Buck."

Silence.

"A lot of people are gonna die. I can't let that happen."

Silence.

Steve steeled himself, and threw his shield. It bounced off Bucky's arm and flew back to him, Steve blocked several bullets, and advanced between each shot until he was in punching range, taking a grazing shot to the side in the process. A hard bash with the shield sent Bucky tumbling backwards and knocking the gun out of his hand. Instead of going for it however, Bucky pulled a knife from a thigh holder and went back on the offensive.

Or would have, if a grey blur hadn't slammed into him from a newly made hole in the dome. The impact dented the steel railing. Steve took his chance and went for the console, but Bucky slammed into his side and they both went over. The impact knocked the new targeting chip from his grasp and it landed several feet away, thankfully unbroken. Steve rushed to grab it and heard the Winter Soldier running up behind him. Snatching the chip Steve braced to be tackled. The impact loosened his teeth and knocked the shield from his grasp, but he held on to the chip. Pinned down and unable to get the leverage to heave Bucky off he called out. "Get the chip! We have to stop the carriers!"

Then both super soldiers were sent tumbling by a percussive _whomp_. The Nekros dropped from the walkway and brandished a huge polearm with a blunt weight on one end and a curved blade on the other. "You do it. You don't want to fight. I do. Go." Before Steve could argue the warframe grabbed him by the leg and threw him up onto one of the tower's lower platforms, just under the walkway.

"Nnnngh. Steve, what…?" Bucky asked, but was quickly supplanted by the Winter Soldier again. He got up and charged.

"Don't worry, I won't kill him." The Nekros assured Steve. "Now GO." Steve began to climb. Matariel faced the oncoming soldier with determination. _Something seems to have dislodged the mental programming. Perhaps…_ He threw a soul punch. The Winter Soldier stumbled, and a confused look flashed across his face, before he resumed charging once more. Without time to throw another soul punch Matariel switched to close quarters, flipping his grip so strikes that would normally dismember instead dislocate, and that any slices with the sharp end instead hit the wrong side of the blade. The Soldier threw a punch with his metal arm which Matariel blocked readily.

"Operator! The algorithm has deployed! Your warframe is in danger! Get out of there!" Coroneer yelled through the void channel. In that brief moment, the Winter Soldier pulled _another gun_ out of somewhere and shot Steve two times before Matariel could respond. He hooked the gun arm with the blade and continued the swing into the glass floor, where the blade sunk cleanly in, trapping the super soldier and his arm against the floor. Matariel turned to check on Captain America when-

"DO IT. DO IT NOW.!

All hell broke loose.

Salvos of gunfire sounded off outside and the helicarrier shook. A huge piece of debris dropped between the tenno and the Captain, cutting off Matariel's view. He tried to look for a way around it but the remaining structure was too unstable. Instead the tenno pulled the staff out of the floor and swung the blunt end into the side of the Winter Soldier's head and dove through the nearest door, sprinting down the hallways of the failing helicarrier.

"Tenno. It was as you said. The Black Widow released all of SHIELD's files onto the wider internet. If you intend to follow through on your plan now is the time."

Matariel acted before Simaris had finished talking. He accessed the many strings Simaris had attached to SHIELD's files before they had captured Sitwell and pulled. To the outside world, SHIELD had no idea warframes existed. No records, no footage, nothing. Matariel smiled to himself. _Let's see how the public reacts._ He thought as he sprinted through the burning hallways. Briefly consulting his map, he dove through a hole in the wall and into another hallway. "Coroneer, fastest way out?"

"An opening just - **EXPLODED** \- about thirty meters ahead on your right. I'll have the archwing ready."

"Captain America status?"

"He just hit the water. It appears that the Winter Soldier is rapidly approaching his position. I recommend you hurry."

"Just have the archwing ready." Matariel skidded to a stop before the hole in the hull. The archwing was there and he jumped out, the wings automatically attached and he was off. Pulling out the velocitus for its zoom, he scanned the river. What he saw gave him pause.

The Winter Soldier was dragging Captain America out of the river. Matariel watched in silence as Steve was dragged, unconscious, onto the river bank and left there. "Patch me into the Black Widow's, Fury's and Agent Hill's earpieces."

"Done."

"-ord on Rogers?" Black Widow sounded worried.

"I have him." Matariel said.

"...Is he all right?"

"He is not dead."

"Get him to a hospital. Getting out of that helicarrier must have been a lot, even for him."

"It was. Beginning retrieval."

* * *

A brief flash of lucidity prompted Steve to roll, aware that if he stayed on his back he would drown. A flash of golden-orange in the corner of his vision, an angel come to take him. A metal angel of death. He lost consciousness before the cold hands reached him.

* * *

AN: ERMAHGERD though I get to see Black Panther next Sunday! That should do some good inspiration. Speaking of, reviews DO make me want to write more. Knowing that people want this stuff means I think about it more and thus have more chance for ideas and stuff. So tell me what you think! Don't be afraid of throwing ideas at me, I love hearing possibilities and discussions.


	14. Try It I Dare You

AN: YO! I made this in a decent amount of time! I feel accomplished.

I saw Black Panther the Sunday after it came out. That was a good movie. The soundtrack was fantastic. I recommend seeing it.

That being said, I'm not sure how much I'm going to include that movie's plot into this story. The astute among you probably noticed that a tenno has been dispatched to investigate something... interesting. And the tenno will definitely make their presence known to Wakanda. I think that watching a Vibranium based and a Void based civilization interact is something too good to pass up.

I've been made aware of a typo in one of my chapters. Thanks! Feel free to point those nasty little buggers out. More often than not I'm writing on mobile, so the auto correct isn't the greatest.

*Dramatic hand waving gesture* POOF! More story.

* * *

Ned: PETER!

Ned: NEWS. NOW.

Peter glanced at his phone. He would have ignored it in favor of the math homework sitting on his desk, but something about that exclamation point… He turned on the TV.

Oh.

"The fight over the Potomac river seems to be drawing to a close, the last of the helicarriers just splashed down. We still cannot get close to the scene, but several sources have found that all of SHIELD's intel has in fact been dumped onto the internet, we are in the process of sorting through them now. We'll report when we have more-"

"Peter? Why are you watching TV? I thought you were doing your homework?" Aunt May walked in, wiping her hands from making lunch. She paused when the caught sight of what was on.

"Ned texted, saying something was going on. He was right." Peter told her.

"I can see that. Geez I hope nobody important gets hurt. Come have lunch."

"Alright. What're we having?"

"Fancy sandwiches."

"Ooooh. Fancy." Peter sent a quick reply telling Ned he had seen what was on TV and got up

* * *

Rain, in his Wukong warframe, hung onto the spire of the Empire State Building, waiting for the inevitable spike in criminal reports. Theris had already started. Polis had thought it would take a day or two for the full effects of SHIELD's collapse to be felt, and he was probably right, but there were certainly people smart enough to ahead of the curve.

A camera flash went off below. Oh well, time to head somewhere else.

Speaking of. A police report came in for a robbery. Time to go to work.

Maybe Spiderman will show up at some point.

* * *

After making sure Steve made it safely inside the hospital, Matariel sped back to the dam where they had planned to meet after the operation. He nodded to Falcon, who was waiting outside. Once Sam was seated, Fury spoke. "Well, now that we've got that out of the way, what next? Captain seems to be giving the orders now, but he's out of commision."

"With all of SHIELD's intel out in public, they're going to come for me." Black Widow's voice sounded resigned. "All my covers are smoke now."

"Knowing the higher ups, you'll probably go to some sort of trial. You helped bring down HYDRA, so that's a plus." Sam tried to be optimistic.

"Yeah, but I also brought down SHIELD."

"Point."

Matariel spoke. "We've decided it's our time to declare ourselves in the eyes of the public. I deleted all of SHIELD's information on us, but the public will have plenty to look at over the course of the next few days. Seeing as I'm the one of us who was on site when the organization imploded, I should be there to clean up the pieces." The tenno flinched and looked down at his surrogate hands. "Unfortunately I have to do it in this body. That's going to be a pain. Abject fear doesn't negotiate well."

Everyone nodded because that made sense.

"So director, what are you going to do?" Natasha asked.

"Well I'm still dead, so I'm going to stay that way. That way I can do things I normally wouldn't be able to. Gives me some leverage. What about you?"

"I'm gonna have to make new covers, hopefully that'll keep me busy for a while." She turned to the present warframe. "Do you have a location on Sam?"

"He is currently making his way back to his home. He's keeping off radar, there's no need to worry."

"Alright. Time to split."

* * *

Tony paced across the bridge of the spaceship. He'd been reading through the so-called 'codex' for hours, and there was still more unread than read. Characters like Dr. Tengus, or Frohd Bek, or even that Hunhow...thing. He would have thought it was fiction if he wasn't standing in evidence to the contrary. On a more immediate note those solar rails were an interesting read. Maybe once he understood the void more he could replicate them. The Earth was visibly growing larger on the screen. The ship itself was only slightly larger than a helicarrier in terms of space, but much more of its volume was devoted to living space. From what Tony could gather this was a passenger/cargo ship, which meant no weapons. This ship was purely a technological asset, not a military one. Tony was secretly glad for it

Simaris appeared on a smaller screen nearby. "We will begin the final approach. Go to your quinjet. Having you appear out of thin air would be detrimental to your cover story. You must exit before we come in range of human sensors."

"Yeah, got it." Stark turned and made his way to the ship's hangar. "JARVIS, startup the jet. And start fabricating sensor data while you're at it."

"Aye, sir. Shall I send word to the people who knew about your trip?"

"Don't tell Fury, I don't want to risk blowing his cover. I'll ask a tenno or someone else to do it."

"Another thing. Ms. Maria Hill has applied for a job at Stark Industries."

"Well hire her god dammit. Send her to HR. She's a keeper."

"Understood." Tony stepped up the ramp and opened the quinjet's door. He mentally started playing through the story he would tell the public: That the trip was a success, and that the data would help advance propulsion research by a large amount. He also had to pretend to be surprised by the fall of SHIELD, since he was supposed to have been out of contact with people while he was gone.

This was going to be tiresome.

Silver lining: The codex was going to provide ideas for new toys for a very long time. He was going to make a lot of money off of this.

The shuttle lifted off and stark took off his helmet. The black-blue was pretty damaged, and according to the Trinity his wounds from the fight with the sentient fighters would come back full force only a few hours from now. So his first order of business should be to get to a medical facility. There were a few private ones he could go to that he owned, and a few more that he didn't. "JARVIS, pull up possible hospitals I could go to to get serious treatment without raising suspicion."

Half a dozen names popped up on the dashboard screen. "I would recommend the one at the top, sir, since it is connected to Dr. Cho's lab and thus would be able to keep quiet. The advanced research done there could be used as a cover for your going there."

"Make the necessary appointments.'

"Yes sir."

Tony leaned back in his chair and yawned, wincing as his lip split open. He put his hand to his mouth, hissing as he touched the reforming bruise.

* * *

Natasha nodded at the invisible warframe crouched against the side of the restaurant's patio fence. The fence was high and covered in foliage, providing enough shade for the warframe to stay invisible without much effort. The plan had been to leak her location secretly to the government, then wait for them to come get her. The TV hanging on the outside wall was showing the arrest of Senator Stern. A waiter came and took her order, just a quick bit of coffee to get her through the whole ordeal. She sipped. Pulling out a bluetooth earpiece she pretended to make a call.

"You sure this is gonna work? They're probably quite ticked off."

"Understandably so." The voice was unmistakably that of the Nekros. "I'm going to have to be there too. I'm not diplomatic, I'm going to have to take cues from you on how to say what I have to say. Don't let me down."

"Well I'm not exactly the best example of sincerity here, considering everything that I've done under cover."

"And according to the public record I am technically about three dozen distinct entities, each of which is a world class threat."

"Point."

"The point is, they need us. The fall of SHIELD proves they need us. And that is cause for shame in their eyes."

"So in other words, we need to save their wounded pride by playing along."

"You do. I'm playing the alien card."

"That's a bit childish."

"Well I am only 40 at most. Still a long way before I'm considered an adult."

Natasha nearly spit out her coffee. Coughing, she turned to look were the warframe was sitting. "I'm sorry? How long do you live?"

"Let's just say millennial doesn't carry the same meaning here as it does where I come from."

Before she could respond, however, a pair of men in suits and dark glasses stepped up to the table. One of them sat down. "Ms. Natalia?" He asked.

"Yes, that's me."

"We're going to have to ask you to come with us. I'd rather not make a scene, but we will use force if necessary."

"Don't worry boys, I'll come quietly."

"Glad you see it our way, Ms." He stood and so did she. Together they walked out, ignoring, or in the men's position, oblivious to, the fourth pair of footsteps following behind them.

* * *

The councilman turned to Black Widow. "Why haven't we heard from Captain Rogers?"

"Well aside from the fact that he is still recovering from saving the country, I'm not sure what else there is to say. I think the wreck in the middle of the Potomac made his point fairly eloquently."

"He could explain how this country is expected to maintain its national security now that he and you have laid waste to our intelligence apparatus."

"I volunteer." The voice came through the microphone speakers, modulated until it was almost unrecognizable, as the warframe raised its hand. As with any time the warframe did anything, everyone in the room flinched slightly. "I may be new here but I have a fairly good grasp on how to go about it." Not a lie, considering.

"Alright let me get one thing straight, aren't you some sort of alien? How do we know your intentions are benevolent?"

"You don't. You can't. But as a sign of goodwill I am offering our services in preserving peace while you recover from this loss. Already we have stationed ourselves around the country, ready to aid any law enforcement that asks. We predicted the fall of SHIELD would likely cause a spike in crime, we want to curb that as much as we are able." Matariel swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth. 'As much as we are able' was a lie, but they didn't need to know that. A full display of strength is not what's needed here.

One of the generals spoke up. "How many of you are there?"

The warframe paused for a moment. "All told, a little over 250 individuals."

"Only 250? We cannot maintain stable security with that many soldiers."

"With all due respect, sirs." Natasha interrupted. "This one by himself did almost as much, if not more, than either Captain America or I did in the fight against HYDRA. Ask any agent who was there. I'd put money on the majority of good people who survived did so because of him." She leaned forward to emphasis her point. "There is no doubt in my mind you could conquer the world with not even a third of that number."

Matariel flinched. That might have been the wrong move, but she continued.

"HYDRA was selling you lies, not intelligence."

"Many of which you seem to have had a person hand in telling."

Another committee member leaned forward. "Agent, you should know that there are some on this committee who feel, given your service record, both for this country and against it, that you belong in a penitentiary. Not mouthing off on Capitol Hill."

The super spy gave the man a look. "You're not going to put me in a prison. You're not going to put any of us in prison. You know why?"

"Do enlighten us."

"Putting aside the fact that there is no prison on Earth that could hold one of them." She nodded toward the warframe. "You need us. Yes the world is a vulnerable place, and yes, we help make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it. So if you want to arrest me, arrest me. You'll know where to find me."

The man looked incredulous while the generals simply looked defeated. Natasha took that as her cue to leave, inciting a flurry of camera flashes and for the warframe to do the same. They walked out, unhindered.

* * *

A couple of days later, they met up at Nick's grave.

Matariel was back in his Loki warframe, leaning against a nearby tree. He would be taking Fury to Europe after this so they could begin going after the remaining HYDRA bases. Steve had decided that he wouldn't come immediately, saying he had to take care of something first. Fury walked off after saying his goodbyes. Matariel stood up to leave, but paused as Natasha approached.

"You should be honored, that's about as close as he he gets to saying thank you."

"You're not going with him?" Steve asked her.

"No."

"Not staying here."

"Nah. I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one."

"That might take a while."

"I'm counting on it… I called in some favors from Kiev, got that thing you asked for." She handed him a folder. She also gave him a warm smile. "Will you me a favor? Call that nurse."

"She's not a nurse."

"And you're not a SHIELD agent."

"What was her name again?"

"Sharon. She's nice." After a pause Natasha closed the distance between them, kissing Steve meaningfully on the cheek. She started to walk away. "Be careful Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread." Matariel smiled to himself at the echo of Teli's words, and walked up to the pair of men looking at the folder.

"You're going after him." Sam wasn't asking.

"You don't have to come with me."

"I know… When do we start?"

* * *

They made landfall in the mountains nearby.

The soldiers' first warning was the three streaks across the sky. No one thought much of it because the meteors didn't even burst in the air, just fizzled out before they even got close.

Strucker's first warning was the one of the watch bunkers spontaneously detonating.

A grunt rushed into the room. "Sir! We are under attack!"

Strucker whirled on the man. "The Avengers? Are they here already?"

"It's not them, we've never encountered these before!"

"Warframes then?" As if in answer one of the nearby security cameras caught sight of the assailants.

They were not warframes.

Their bodies were the color of sun bleached bones and dried blood, pale yellow-orange lights glowed in their chests. Each one floated precisely the same short distance off the ground. As Strucker watched, one of the patrolling tanks fired a shot at one of them. The remaining half of the thing smoldered as it fell to the ground and Strucker smirked, whatever these were, the perimeter could handle it.

Then it got back up.

Now the light in its chest was purple. One by one the other lights turned that baleful purple hue. Another tank sounded off, but the things stayed floating, no damage done.

"Sir, soldiers report vocalizations emanating from them."

"What are they saying?" Strucker asked.

"' **You would harness the void, as the old empire did. I will carve your beating heart from it's nest, Orokin called Strucker.'** That is what they heard."

Struck paled.

"Sir! Should we send out the twins?"

"Not a chance, they aren't close to stable enough for combat yet. Send them out now and they won't survive to fight the Avengers. Tell the men to fight a delaying action if they can. We can't stop those things, so we must survive long enough to escape. Begin emergency movement procedures, activate the prototype shield. We must evacuate to the Sokovia base. Move people!" Strucker then left the room to secure the scepter. Having to move so soon will definitely stick a wrench in their plans, but they would recover. He entered the chamber and grabbed the scepter after pulling on a safety glove. The scepter's effects were not fully understood yet, and they were not going to take chances.

Preparing to transport the scepter, he made his way through the base to the vehicle bay. Proud of the men doing their jobs in making sure he would get out alive. He found the box designated to transport the scepter and placed the artifact inside. The hum of the forcefield could be heard from here, and Strucker turned to admire one of his greatest achievements.

Instead he saw one of the assailants hammering against the shield with a pair of huge batons. In seconds the thing had punctured a hole and was spinning towards him in a dervish of death. Unable to do anything, Strucker grabbed the first thing that came to mind, the scepter, and waited for the blow to impact his new weapon.

It never came.

Strucker opened his eyes to find an astounding sight. The creature had deactivated. It stood, or rather hovered, exactly two feet off the ground. Its limbs were folded neatly behind it, making its frontal profile nearly nonexistent. He looked at the scepter, which glowed faintly. The light in the middle of the thing's chest was back to pale yellow.

 _What is this?_ Strucker thought. Experimentally, he swung the scepter and knocked off the creature's arm. It didn't cut like he had expected, but rather the arm simply detached and clanked to the floor. _Huh_. The sound of footsteps made him turn and he found a dozen soldiers staring at him in awe. "Well." He said. "Don't just stand there, pack this thing up! And keep it close to the scepter! That appears to be the only thing that can stop it." They immediately moved to comply.

Strucker laughed to himself. _These things sought to take my life, but instead gave me technology and inspired loyalty. Not a smart move on their part._ He hopped into the back of the truck with a few other scientists. The convoy was ready. With the flick of his wrist they were off. They pulled out of the vehicle bay and onto the dirt road. Behind them the experimental shield finally failed and the small base went up in flames. Above, floating serenely, was a single ship casting a long shadow over the area, it wasn't large, but it had two long arms, and from each dangled a dozen or more things like the one sitting in the back of the truck. _Pity we didn't get our hands on one of the ones with guns._ Strucker thought to himself. _That would have been much better._ He turned to regard the thing on the floor in front of him. One of the scientists was already scanning it.

"I don't know what this thing is made of." The scientist said. "It is incredibly advanced, yet despite that it appears to be far from pristine condition. No recognizable energy residue, so it wasn't our weapons. Wherever this thing came from, it was damaged well before it got here."

"It's dead, then?"

"It never was alive, at least by our definition. It is a machine."

"That is good for us. If we can figure out how it works and what can damage it, imagine what something that can damage something this powerful would do to a human."

"Or an Avenger."

The two men shared a smile.

* * *

AN: Boo ya! Alright, I'm gonna get a bit of news out of the way. The next update will be coming next week, but it won't be a story chapter. Full disclosure I'm buying some time to write. The next post will be an intermission of sorts that will list out and explain how I've modified all the warframe's powers for the purposes of story. I will also be addressing things like how stats such as power strength and efficiency translate over, as well as channeling. I go into a bit more detail there, so I'll leave it at that.

As childish as it is, they are their own characters now. They have begun regularly not doing what I thought they would. I'll take it as a sign of a well made character.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to review!


	15. Brief Intermission

AN: Like I said, no story here. This is me getting down on paper how the warframe abilities work in the story.

I'm super sorry for not uploading this on Monday like I said I would. No excuse.

* * *

On the whole I'm going to run with the idea that the ability augments are either inbuilt, always active or triggerable at will, depending on their effects. There are a lot of limitations that make sense in game, but wouldn't in a more realistic scenario, like Limbo having to dodge to enter the rift or operators having to select a certain school in order to use certain abilities. I'm going to run with the idea that the range, strength and duration of abilities are changeable on the fly, but the stats can't be changed after casting. Vauban can't lightly tickle a squirrel and kill a man with the same tesla grenade. Efficiency isn't a thing. The only stipulation is that certain abilities have soft limits to their duration, after which their effectiveness is reduced considerably. From here on I will be addressing each warframe's abilities individually, making note of what kind of changes I'm using to make them more... sensible... in my opinion. You're free to disagree, and let me know about it, if you have a more attractive idea I would love to hear it.

On the subject of channeling, I've thought of an interesting way of making it work, but not have it be the only thing they do, (like in Dragon ball where once they figured out how to super saiyan that's all they did in a fight). In this story channeling is what happens when a tenno surges more void energy through a warframe than it was made to handle, basically, it's warframe overclocking. Too much and the warframe self-destructs under the strain. If that's how it worked than it would provide a rather nice explanation as to how Gara blew up the unnamed sentient in the Gara Legend. The Unum gave her a device that super-de-duper overloaded her warframe and caused a catastrophic overload of void energy, which Sentients are more than a little allergic to. Or perhaps the device itself was a sort of crippled warframe-like construct, since it was 'man sized', so perhaps if two warframes overloaded simultaneously we get results like the explosion that killed the sentient.

On the subject of the tenno themselves, they're kind of weird. So I'm going to vomit out a bunch of stuff and roll with it.

Tenno:

Every tenno can use every active skill from every tree, but some are better at some trees than others.

Everything is triggerable, from the lighting balls to the fire trails and blasts.

Physically immune to both fire and electricity.

Can turn invisible without crouching, can crouch without turning invisible.

They all suffer muscle atrophy, and recovery is ongoing. They are much weaker physically than the average human.

Tenno do not need to eat, use the restroom, or sleep, as their adaptation to the void has relieved them of the need to do such things, they also naturally produce an amount of power (i.e. if a tenno holds a lightbulb with their bare hands it will light up). If a Tenno eats food, their normal bodily functions resume, until they run out of food again. Think about eating and drinking like adding overshields to their life force. They can maintain normal health without it, but doing it feels better and makes them stronger.

Things in general tend to make less sense around the tenno. Being forced to survive in the environment they did resulted and an uncontrollable ability to bend causality towards them surviving any predicament they get themselves into. This does not extend to warframes.

* * *

Ash:

Shuriken: Unchanged.

Smoke bomb: Does not give direct invisibility, but makes the warframe almost impossible to spot while it is inside. Smoke cloud hangs around despite wind conditions for as long as the tenno wishes. Also has a significantly higher natural range than in game.

Teleport: Mostly unchanged. Doesn't require there to be a something to teleport to, but cannot teleport into mid air. Momentum is maintained through teleportation.

Blade Storm: Doesn't require victim to be marked, only that the ash knows the victim is there. Can halt midway through the kill move if the victim is an ally by mistake.

Passive: Kind of hard to talk about extending slash damage in this scenario, so I'm removing it entirely, he's lethal enough in this world.

* * *

Atlas:

Landslide: A rock punch is a rock punch, not much to change here, but I will say his punches are on par with Thanos'.

Tectonics: Can made infinite walls of varying sizes. Depends on available rocks/concrete in the area. All can be turned into boulders. This ability is much more flexible than in game and is more akin to Avatar: TLAB earthbending, but no levitation, just flinging around.

Petrify: Going with the continuous version of this ability, the rework made it an instant thing, but I like the continuous scream better.

Rumblers: Rumblers are Rumblers. They are made out of whatever is nearby.

Passive: Ability potency based on amount of material in the area. Warframe deals in concrete, stone and dirt, but not metal.

* * *

Banshee:

Sonic Boom: Unchanged. Strength and range variable at will.

Sonar: Since most people in this world don't have a minimap, Sonar's damage spots are visible through walls for allies.

Silence: Unchanged. Affects everyone in range, even allies, but enemies are the only ones who experience pain.

Sound Quake: Unchanged.

Passive: Unchanged.

* * *

Chroma:

Spectral Scream: Much better than in game, like actual dragon breath. Green energy is acid, not toxin. Can do breath or projectile at will.

Elemental Ward: Mostly unchanged. Green energy provides speed/agility/physical strength boost.

Vex Armor: Mostly unchanged, but scorn and fury are not tied to shields and health respectively. Also it doesn't affect allies. Can't have the Hulk dealing seven times his strength against… well anyone really.

Effigy: Non stationary. It can move around at the Chroma's will, though there is a soft range limit.

Passive: Color's can be changed on the fly. Green is more acid than toxin, though it does both.

* * *

Ember:

Changing ember quite a bit. She's a fire bender now. But Accelerant is still a thing, so like she can make things stay on fire even if they aren't flammable.

Passive: Ember is outright immune to fire. The more fire in the area, the more powerful her abilities.

* * *

Equinox:

Metamorphosis: Usable instantaneously and freely. Doubles as the ability to summon the alternate form on command.

Rest and Rage: Rage causes irrational anger, rest sleeps people and can't be undone even if you kill them.

Pacify and Provoke: Unchanged.

Mend and Maim: Mend provides warframe-grade shields to allies in range and uses the viscera of dead enemies to heal allies. Maim unchanged.

Passive: Removed. Energy orbs and health orbs don't exist here.

* * *

Excalibur:

Slash Dash: Unchanged.

Blind: Unchanged.

Radial Javelin: Unchanged.

Exalted Blade: Unchanged.

Passive: Removed, other than an Excalibur will always win in a sword fight.

* * *

Frost:

Frost is almost entirely unchanged, save that he has much more flexibility in his control over ice.

* * *

Gara:

Shattered Lash: Gara can create any bladed weapon out of glass, though the weapons can only handle one or two strikes at most before shattering.

Splinter Storm: Glass shards block all projectiles, but the individual shard is destroyed in the process and Gara must create more to maintain ability.

Spectrorage: Can take any shape, or outline the room.

Mass Vitrification: Unchanged, though much more durable and impervious to energy based attacks in to a point.

Passive: Unchanged, though much more controllable.

* * *

Harrow:

Condemn: Unchanged. Can climb walls and ceilings.

Penance: Unchanged, can be applied to humans, but is highly avoided.

Thurible: Envigorates Humans and warframes alike. Strains induced from pushing a warframe ability to its limits is reduced.

Covenant: Instead of Critical damage boost it's just a raw strength and agility bosst, along with heightened mental acuity.

* * *

Hydroid:

Tempest Barrage: Can come from above, from any source of water, or Hydroid's hands.

Tidal Surge/ Undertow: Combining both into one, Hydroid can turn his body into water at will. The water that makes up his body is endless once entered, and can only be escaped if Hydroid is forced back into his normal form or is he lets you out.

Tentacle Swarm: An eldritch beast lurks in Hyroid's endless deep ocean. He can summon it from any body of water, or from within himself.

Passive: He's a goddam water bender.

* * *

Inaros:

Desiccation: Unchanged, it's a spontaneous wave of sand, there's no need to change it.

Devour: Unchanged. Not used often, because Inaros is literally eating the person.

Sandstorm: Unchanged.

Scarab Swarm: Unchanged.

Passive: He's a sandbender. Also able to control most insects/arachnids/creepy crawlies to varying degrees.

* * *

Ivara:

Quiver: Can fire any arrow at any time, no need to 'cycle' through them. Also has access to the conclave arrows all the time. (I'm going to forget about those so often)

Navigator: Can control multiple projectiles at once, but the higher the number the less precise the control.

Prowl: Unchanged.

Artemis bow: Able to fire any number of arrows at any angle, all arrows are perfectly controlled.

Passive: All tenno have a basic three dimensional minimap that shows where people are by way of dots on the map. Ivara sees figured superimposed on the environment itself, making the minimap redundant.

* * *

Khora (Going off of devstream and youtube sources right now, will update this once she comes out):

Ability one: The whip ability, unchanged.

Ability two:

Ability three:

Exhalted Whip Ability four:

Passive: Can change damage type on the fly, cat is always there. Complete control over all cats nearby. I can't give much more than this right now, if you guys know of a place where I can get more information please let me know.

* * *

Limbo:

Banish: Can be single target or AoE.

Stasis: Unchanged. No limit to number of allied projectiles stopped.

Rift surge: More of a bomb than radial banish. Increases the rift's effects on people (see below).

Cataclysm: Unchanged. That thing doesn't need to be any bigger, but it can last forever, but after a very long time is becomes difficult to maintain.

Passive: Instead of the dumb dodge thing Limbo can go in and out at will, without even moving. The rift itself has a positive effect on allies, giving them more stamina, injuries are less severe, it's a sort of vague boost to healthiness, while for enemies it's like constantly listening to heavy bass vibrations with no particular tune or sound. Like that weird irritability that come with being hungry.

* * *

Loki

Decoy: Decoy is mobile and cable of doing just as much damage. Kind of like a naruto shadow clone, except while active neither of them is the real one, if you hit the 'real' one it is instantly replaced by the decoy, if you hit the decoy it gets destroyed. Decoy can block and dodge, but if it takes any 'health' damage it vanishes. Schrödinger's decoy.

Invisibility: Indefinite, though hard to maintain for long periods in direct light.

Switch Teleport: Unchanged. There's a vague restriction on range, but it is only over very long distances.

Radial Disarm: All weapons, if completely enclosed by the disarm, no longer function. If weapon is too big to fit, it can't be disarmed.

Passive: Kinda null, considering. Replaced with Loki being naturally less noticeable. If he stops interacting with someone they are likely to forget he's there.

* * *

Mag:

Pull and crush both branch from the same basic idea, so I'm replacing them both with complete control over magnetism and an approximation of metalbending therein.

Magnetize: Unchanged.

Polarize: Unchanged, but also can be an EMP if she wishes.

Passive: Fuck her in-game passive. Now she can destabilize energy based attacks completely.

* * *

Mesa:

Ballistic Battery: Instead of having to deal damage, it has a sort of cooldown. Applies infinite punchthrough and does much more damage.

Shooting Gallery: Is now toggle, no guns work within a certain radius of her or one other.

Shatter Shield: Toggle, bullets are reflected back at attacker, up to a certain range, if the enemy is outside this then the bullet is deflected at another enemy instead.

Peacemaker: Unchanged. It makes peace, doesn't need to do anything else.

* * *

Mirage:

Hall of Mirrors: Number of holograms varies at will and can number up to a dozen or more. Mirage can choose to not be the one in the center of the formation, but the holograms always rotate around and mimic her actions. The hologram position can take any formation the tenno wishes.

Sleight of Hand: Doesn't affect things for allies, (i.e. Black Widow could pick up a magazine, but an enemy would get electrocuted). Any number of gems can be created and can have many effects which include but are not limited to: flash detonation, temporary mesmerisation, and electrocution or paralysis on contact.

Eclipse: Mostly unchanged. I have no issue with the ability itself, but it's not reliable in-game. Always effects nearby people, but has reverse effects on enemies. Or they could just be regular gemstones.

Prism: Lasers do not track, but all of them damage enemies. Can be moved at will by caster, but requires extra concentration.

Passive: Mirage is naturally much more agile. Loki always wins the hundred meter dash, but Mirage always wins the obstacle course. She also incredibly flexible.

* * *

Nekros:

Soul Punch: Still punches you in the soul, but allies can be punched just as hard, strength of punch can be changed at will. Low strength can wake an unconscious person, high strength can send someone into shell shock or worse, depending on their mental state.

Terrify: Unchanged. That slow thing the augment does is purely psychological, though people can be so afraid that they lose effective motor control and can't escape.

Desecrate: This one is weird, since there's no loot. So I'm tentatively deciding to make it where the viscera/blood of dead enemies can be sucked into an allied warframe and heal it. Horrifying.

Shadows of the Dead: Mostly unchanged, though the number of possible shadows has a much softer limit. There's also a negative correlation between number of shadows and precision of control.

Passive: Nekros' original passive was almost unnoticeable, I didn't know he had it until I wrote this. So instead Nekros knows when anything dies nearby.

* * *

Nezha:

Firewalker: Mostly unchanged, but the fire travels through the air too, instead of cutting off when her jumps. Also he doesn't have to do that goofy casting animation.

Blazing Chakram: Mostly unchanged, can be bounced off of or cut through most things.

Warding Halo: Only change is visual, it doesn't constantly rotate, but instead spins to intercept projectiles. Doesn't have to do the goofy casting animation

Divine Spears: Unchanged. Doesn't have to do the goofy casting animation.

Passive: Togglable, but otherwise unchanged.

* * *

Nidus:

Virulence: Unchanged.

Larva: Unchanged.

Parasitic Link: Unchanged.

Ravenous: Unchanged. Swarms of maggots instead of just a few.

Passive: Instead of gaining adaptation 'stacks' by hitting things with virulence, stacks are gained based on damage taken/dealt and warframe agitation. Nidus also has much more control over the infestation, where in their home universe the natural hive intelligence of the infested overrules most if not all of Nidus' control over anything outside of maggots, he can technically create chargers, leapers, crawlers and other light units out of infestation, along with creating the large infested structures found in the derelict and infested corpus ships. In the MCU, however, if he creates too much it will gain a mind of its own and become uncontrollable, so making animated infestation is generally shied away from.

* * *

Nova:

Null Star: Mostly unchanged, the little stars do a lot more damage though.

Antimatter Drop: Unchanged, variable strength and range upon casting.

Wormhole: Unchanged, though it no longer had to be a straight line.

Molecular Prime: Nova can close not to have certain targets explode, but still slow them down.

Passive: I'm going to keep it, but I'm also allowing Nova to be more creative with the application of antimatter.

* * *

Nyx:

Mind Control: Mostly unchanged.

Psychic bolts: Unchanged, but almost never used.

Chaos: Unchanged.

Absorb: Unchanged.

Passive: I'm going to roll with Nyx can read minds, but she can't manipulate minds, when she mind controls, she's blocking their mental commands, not directly affecting their minds.

* * *

Oberon:

Smite: Unchanged.

Hallowed Ground: Unchanged. Plant growth is. More varied though.

Renewal: Speeds up natural healing, so it can't regrow limbs or anything like mend or bless. Inhibits pain reflex.

Reckoning: Unchanged.

Passive: Animals are much more prevalent than in warframe, so he can communicate and control all animals up to a point.

* * *

Octavia:

Mallet: Mostly unchanged.

Resonator: I don't know what the hell to do with this thing, so I'm gonna leave it, and figure it out if the situation arises. (Spoilers it will).

Metronome: Getting rid of the invisibility, strengthens the void bond tenno share, and are more easily able to predict and react to each other's actions, and extends this coordination to allies. Enemies find themselves timing their actions with music as well, making them more predictable.

AMP: Mostly unchanged.

Passive: I'm expanding the mandachord's repertoire to include any instrument in existence, and is able to play any song for any length of time.

* * *

Rhino:

Rhino Charge: Mostly unchanged. Able to use it continuously and change direction mid charge, bit his turn radius is really large.

Iron Skin: Unchanged.

Rhino Roar: Unchanged. Provide strength boost to any ally nearby.

Rhino Stomp: The move is described as stopping time. I don't like this, so I'm removing that part of the ability in favor of more damage. Knocks everyone who isn't ready over.

Passive: Unchanged.

* * *

Saryn:

Spores: Unchanged.

Molt: Unchanged.

Toxic Lash: Unchanged. Impossible to cure the toxin, but the toxin doesn't last long. Augment is triggerable at will.

Miasma: Unchanged.

Passive: I'm rolling with Saryn's toxins having inverse potency/ time relationship, weaker poisons last longer, etc. So instead of increased status timers, Saryn is immune to chemical warfare.

* * *

Titania:

Spellbind/Tribute: I'm combining Spellbind and Tribute. Can be cast on one or many people and can give the buffs or not. Tributes are more direct in their sapping effects, so stronger enemies give stronger effects.

Lantern: Isn't cast on an enemy any more, creates a Prism-like floating light that is soft and comforting and distracting. Don't go toward the light.

Razorwing: Turns Titania into a cloud of butterflies, instead of just six. Each butterfly is capable of casting, but they cast the tribute/Spellbind thing at their location, not at range. Small Titania can still cast at range.

Passive: Unchanged.

* * *

Trinity:

Well of Life: I'm changing this into a 'wave your hand over the wound' heal. In exchange for not giving the target cancer it takes much longer to heal an ally, but the wounds are actually healed, unlike bless.

Energy Vampire: Unchanged. Leaves enemy incredibly tired.

Link: Unchanged, but with much better range and reflection. Triple target.

Bless: Mostly unchanged. Excessive blessing leads to cancer, and the heal effect only lasts for three days at most before reverting the target back to their damaged state. Can't have that big of a plot device without some drawbacks. Mend does the same thing, but less aggressively so the effects aren't as severe.

Passive: Trinity can cast in air. Oh and she's the only one who's revives work on humans, any warframe can revive another downed warframe, but Trinity can revive a dead human, provided she gets there within a minute of their death. This timer is not extended by renewal.

* * *

Valkyr:

Ripline: Mostly unchanged, can be used much the same way as spiderman's webs, but it punctures the target, so using it on people can get messy, if the valkyr is paying attention though they can wrap the ripline around a target and use it that way.

Warcry: Unchanged.

Paralysis: Mostly unchanged, but also not really used. I'm picturing enemies affected by it undergo a very brief period of mental blackout, operating completely on instinct for something like 3-4 seconds.

Hysteria: Unchanged.

Passive: Valkyr has a passive? Yes. Technically she's immune to heavy landings and has increased knockdown recovery, but I'm going to roll with she can be knocked around, unlike Atlas, but she always hits the ground on her feet.

* * *

Vauban:

Tesla: Unchanged.

Minelayer: Unchanged.

Bastille: Unchanged. Augment triggerable on cast.

Vortex: Unchanged.

Passive: The armor thing is nonsense. Here Vauban is immune to any void-nullifying effects or fields (Spoiler: that does become a factor).

* * *

Volt:

Shock: Much more controllable. He can freely control electricity.

Speed: Unchanged.

Electric Shield: Unchanged. Size/shape variable.

Discharge: Unchanged, but kind of a extension of Volt's ability to control electricity instead of a full blown ability.

Passive: Adding electricity damage is still there, but not as prevalent, so I'm giving volt the ability to also sense any and all electric currents nearby.

* * *

Wukong:

Iron poke Jab: Unchanged. Wukong can summon the staff at will almost instantly, so this is just an extension of that.

Defy: He punches himself in the head. Why would I need to change that? Unchanged. Still takes damage, but can't be incapacitated.

Cloudwalker: Unchanged, but much more freeform, excessive use causes the area to become foggy, regardless of weather.

Primal Fury: He can summon the staff without warning, often wielding it alongside whatever gun/melee he's using.

Passive: Wukong has a passive? Yes. He has a longer combo counter in-game, but here he can see perfectly no matter what weather conditions or time of day.

* * *

Zephyr:

Tail Wind: She can straight up fly. Like superman.

Airburst: Thank God she got this thing before I wrote anything with a Zephyr in it. Unchanged.

Turbulence: Unchanged.

Tornado: Full control over their movements. Number varied by combining or splitting them at will.

Passive: Still there. But now she's an airbender too.

* * *

Yeah, so about this, I've been sitting on this for a while, and I wanted to make sure I put you guys on the same page as me when it comes to how I'm writing the warframes. I threw this thing together pretty quickly, as an attempt to get myself more immersed in the world, and to a large extent it worked. I feel much happier about where the story sits. It astounds me to see how much I've gotten out of only two movies, and to think I'm going to have four or five more to pull from is a bit mind blowing. Combine that with the fact that I'm going to be connecting most of the stories with mini arcs in between and I've got my work cut out for me.


	16. Put Two and Two in Combination

AN: Hey guys! I'm not dead. So... funny story. I actually had this ready the week after spring break (the second week of March) and have been writing at speed since, so I have another 2-3 chapters lined up. This is why I haven't committed to a schedule other than updates will come on Mondays. I've reached the point where I have to start watching the movie to get my facts straight and I haven't had time to do that much, so there might be a slow down. Nothing as drastic as that impromptu hiatus, but still noticeable.

So here's a longer chapter.

* * *

Peter crouched on the corner of a building, the night sky held almost no stars, something he'd heard Rain complain about numerous times. After what happened in DC Rain had come barreling through one night -while Peter had been busting a robber- wanting to talk. The robber thought he could use the distraction to escape but Rain had, without even sparing the man a glance, whipped him against the alley wall with his Wukong's staff, knocking him out cold. He had then proceeded go explain that the most secretive and powerful agency in the US had just imploded, and how Peter had been seconds from dying without even knowing it. Rain had then told Peter that his job as a hero was about to get much harder, but Rain would be there to help if he needed it.

He'd been right. SHIELD's collapse had made many people somehow think they could get away with a lot more. And Peter nightly returned home with a fresh scrape or bruise that he had to hide or hope healed before Aunt May noticed anything. More than once he'd had too close a call and Rain had had to drop what he was doing to save him. He hated having to be saved. He was a hero dammit. It was his job to save others.

On top of that he had reached a sort of plateau when it came to training; the amount time he lasted during their sparring matches with Rain or the grey/orange one was no longer increasing. When he asked about it both of them just said his mindset was preventing him from going further, but that going any further would also start to show tradeoffs. Whatever that meant.

Now the crime wave was slowing down, and the Avengers were spending a lot of time outside the country hunting down HYDRA bases around the world. He was also seeing less and less of Rain himself, since the warframes were also being called out around the world for various reasons, including news and diplomatic… stuff. Peter always got a kick out of watching them attempt to get words out of the mouthless warriors. Turns out they decided that they'd only speak to heroes and in private. Except for that one time on Capitol Hill, the only one to actively speak was the Banshee wearer, the brown and black one, who had almost immediately begun running interference with the U.N. and other world powers, keeping their attention on her so the others could move unimpeded.

Speaking of. Peter saw Rain flying over rooftops toward him, this time as a Zephyr. He watched as the warframe banked and came in for the landing.

"Heee~ey. How's it going?" Rain sing-songed. Leaning over to hang from the edge of the building by his knees. "What about that school thing you shmucks do?"

Behind his mask Peter rolled his eyes. "Didn't you have schools back where you came from?"

"Eh technically. Haven't been to one in over thirty years though. Or thirty decades. Not really sure."

The other boy spluttered. "Thirty decades? How long do you live?"

Rain shrugged. "I don't know, we don't remember much about our pasts and we were in cryo-sleep for who knows how long. I stopped guessing a while ago. I will die when I die and not a day sooner." He swung up back onto the roof. "Oop, we have a hostage situation."

Spiderman jumped into a ready stance. "Where?"

Rain pointed in a vague direction. "I don't know your human streets. It's that way." He dropped off the roof like a scuba diver before flying off. Peter followed by web. When they were within sight of the police barricade Rain headed the vigilante off. "When we get there I want you to stay back. You are still a vigilante. We technically have government backing. Stay back and let me know if anything weird comes up." He handed Peter a small glowing ball.

"But I can help fight!" The young hero insisted.

"You can help by telling me if anything unusual happens. You don't have the public opinion on your side yet. Don't make attempts past your means."

"But-"

"No arguments."

The hero grumbled an assent and moved to a nearby roof in a huff.

…

Rain sighed to himself as he watched Spiderman swing away. _I hope he gets a breakthrough soon. I can't hold him back much longer._ He landed near the police officers and approached slowly. They spotted him and raised their guns before realizing what he was and standing down. The one who seemed to be in charge stepped forward.

"You here to help?"

Rain nodded.

"...Fine. There are seven of them in there with about a dozen hostages. They've refused any negotiators and we have under five minutes to accede to their demands. What do you think you can do?"

Rain pulled out a little gadget Stark and Gemma had created to communicate with normal humans. It was a little tablet that made a miniature void connection with the somatic chair and displayed whatever the tenno said on the screen.

 **Lethal or nonlethal?**

The policeman scratched his beard. "Nonlethal if you can, I guess." Rain gave them an affirmative nod then walked toward the barrier. He stepped onto it and stood there in full view of the building. _This is their warning. Their response determines how this will end._

A bullet whizzed past his head and sparked on the concrete behind him.

Well then.

Rain glanced at his HUD map and noted the positions of all seven of them: two by the door, three on patrol together and two with what he assumed were the hostages. _Two minutes. Tops._

He gave them no warning. In a gust of wind he blew through the door, trained a gremlin on one knee each and fired. A blow to the head and they were out with severe concussions.

The group of three was harder, but not by much. Rain threw his Ferrox between them, dragging them towards each other and keeping them off balance. A hop, skip and a foot across the face put one of them down. Continuing the motion Rain swept the feet out from under another and threw him into the third, a woman. They hit the wall and Rain heard a crack that wasn't the wall and winced in sympathy. He continued on to the hostages.

"Stop or I'll shoot!" Goon number six shouted when the tenno entered the room. He looked a bit more intense than the others. Goon number seven was a wall of a man though. He charged instantly. The guy threw a few punches, one of which actually hit, which was interesting. Rain responded with an airburst to his chest, which lifted him a good two feet off the ground and threw him into Goon six. Rain mechanically relieved them of their guns and disassembled them.

"Oy! You let one get away!" Spiderman shouted over the communication device. Rain had given him.

 _Oh shit._ "Did I? Huh. That's strange, better go get him then." Rain tried to use his best smug voice before snarling to himself. The hostages were staring at him warily and Rain emphatically pointed at the door. Trying to get the message across that they were free to go. They seemed to get it and started wandering toward the exit.

"Hello? Is this Purple? The banshee told me this was the frequency for the purple guy." Steve's voice was a bit hesitant, and Rain sniggered as how timid and confused his voice sounded.

"Hold on Spidey I'm getting a call."

"Who-"

"SSSSHHHHHHHHH. Yes Captain?" Rain felt Spiderman go still on hearing the title.

"Oh you can hear me? Good, cell phones are still a new thing for me, let alone whatever... this thing is."

"Don't worry about it. What can I do ya for?" Rain asked jovially.

"We're starting our final campaign on the remaining HYDRA bases, most of which are in central Europe, we were wondering if we could get your help at finishing them off."

"You're asking me if I can be arsed to leave New York completely unpoliced from enhanced crime, follow you slowpokes all the way to Europe on an extended campaign against the eggshells you left behind when SHIELD experienced a sudden, violent, and unplanned disassembly."

"I don't think that's quite-"

"Sure."

"-what I…"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"We're meeting up at the tower in a little over an hour."

"You should go take a nap. You sound tired."

"I can't, there's still a lot we have to do."

Rain scoffed. "If you don't I will personally hunt you down with an Ivara and put you to sleep."

Silence from the other end. Rain decided to wait him out.

"...Fine. A nap sounds like a good idea."

"Good boy."

"I'm… not even going to dignify that."

"Dignify a bed instead."

Steve hung up.

"..."

"..."

"... That was CAPTAIN AMERICA!" Spiderman squealed.

"Yes, that was Captain America."

Spiderman continued to squeal. Rain sighed good naturedly. "You get the escapee?" He asked.

"Webbed and waiting for the police."

"Nice. Now go home, it's past your bedtime."

"What? How is that even a thing? You don't have the authority to tell me what to do!"

"See, you're getting cranky. Best to go to bed now, have you finished your homework?"

The red and blue hero went silent.

"...You ok?"

"No. I forgot about an essay! Shitshitshitshit…" As Spiderman dissolved into hysterics and swung away Rain called his Xiphos down to pick him up. He wanted to review loadouts before the campaign, and now was the best time to do so.

* * *

Back in his orbiter, Rain stepped down the ramp and into the main compartment, he briefly waved his hand near the face of his sleeping Smeeta, Grimalkin. Not enough to disturb her, but enough to let her know he was here. She flicked an ear and readjusted her peacock tail around her pale yellow body. He activated the arsenal platform and began rapid fire spinning through the holographic display. He activated the Simulacrum key and waited as the world around him dissolved into a rolling orange landscape, littered with stone corpses. An Ivara and a Chroma were already parked nearby, judging from the color schemes it was Teli and Polis. Walking over the nearest hill revealed he was right. Rain stepped out of his warframe and joined them. Teli was sitting up, with Polis' head in her lap. The two were close, by human standards, we think they are siblings, but they don't remember and getting genetic tests done wasn't exactly high on our priorities list.

"Hey." Rain announced himself.

"Hey." Polis replied. Teli just glanced over and nodded, her lime green hair and brown eyes perfectly inverted in Polis' brown hair and electric green irises. "I've been thinking."

"Uh oh."

"Shut up. I was just wondering how we're going to deal with all this." Polis gestured vaguely into the air. "Do we want to go back? Should we bring our whole clan here? According to those SHIELD files, there are a lot of aliens out there, and some pretty nasty stuff down here."

"Kavat's out of the bag with the aliens bit after New York. As for everything else, you know I leave smart decisions to Matariel."

Teli tilted her head. "Why do we hide our names?"

"I don't actually know. I know we got into the habit of calling each other by what warframes we were using out of convenience, but I see no reason that we should hide that. We should bring it up sometime." Rain shrugged. "I do agree with hiding the fact that we're children from them for a while yet."

Polis hummed in response. "We don't have the pull to be able to keep their respect if we tell them, not yet. They view children our relative age as non-combatants."

"Well we are only in our thirties."

"Relative. Age."

Rain threw his hands up in surrender and laid back on the hillside. He was out when his head hit the back of his helmet.

The other two tenno shared a glance. Teli resumed carding her hands through his hair and he resumed staring at the shattered moon.

* * *

Steve woke to Natasha knocking on his door.

"Wakey wakey. Time for the briefing. Tony just got in and he's feeling antsy, best not make him wait too long or he might start inventing at us."

Steve nodded and turned to look down at his notes. Despite not wanting to follow Purple's advice he had fallen asleep anyway. But he did feel somewhat refreshed, maybe he should actually have taken a nap instead. Whatever the case, he had more important things to worry about.

How to integrate warframes into the plan.

The problem was, he wasn't sure how much to give them. Whether he should send only one per base or in pairs, triplets, quartets, or just let them do their own thing. He just didn't know what they were capable of. Their MO blurred the line between highly specialized tool and swiss army knife. He stood. Nothing to it, time was of the essence. He left the room with the papers.

* * *

Footsteps bounced off the glass walls of the large room. Tony reached a handrail, turned, and began pacing back across the room. He stopped, turned, and crouched. Hesitantly, he reached forward, stretching out his arm, and-

"Mr. Stark. I really am levitating. I'm also trying to concentrate."

Tony withdrew his hand from under the light grey Vauban, currently hovering cross legged a couple of feet off the ground. Across the space, the neutral grey Equinox looked out the window, exuding an air of exasperation. Bruce sat at the bar with Clint, who was lightly sipping some drink or another. Natasha had taken up a position on the couch, watching a screen showing a fight between a pale brown Rhino.

They were exchanging some pretty heavy blows, Thor wielding his hammer as adeptly as ever while the warframe was working wonders with a pair of blocky, electrically charged tonfa.

Thor threw the hammer and went to grapple, but the warframe swiftly dodged the weapon and delivered a brutal kick to the gut. Skidding across the floor Thor called Mjolnir back, intending to catch the tenno off guard like so many others, but without missing a beat the warframe ditched the tonfas, spread its arms straight out, lifted its feet off the ground, and _grabbed Mjolnir_. Riding it and sending the Rhino's fist directly into Thor's face.

Clint flinched and handed Bruce a few bills.

The combatants paused, listening to thin air. Thor staggered to his feet, and both fighters shook hands before leaving the cameras view. Moments later the two entered the room, Thor's arm draped over the warframe's shoulder. Steve followed closed behind. He glanced around to check that everyone was present.

"Are the other warframes going to be here?" Steve asked.

"Only those with something to add are present Captain, but speak as though we are all listening." Gemma stepped away from the window and Matariel stood up, brushing past Tony as he did. Everyone congregated around the table in the center of the room, where Steve placed a small holographic projector. The device beeped and a map of the world spread before them.

"The highest concentration of bases are in central-eastern Europe. So I figured we'd start there." He faced the Vauban. "My thought was, since you are so effective, we can brute force it. Us Avengers sweep through from the west, working our way east while the warframes keep them on their toes by taking out bases at random. How many of you would it take to bring down a base?"

The warframe considered for a moment, then slowly raised a finger at one of the points of light indicating a base in India. "Scratch that one. Sandon brought it down this morning. To answer your question, from what we've seen it would take anywhere from an hour to three to bring one down, depending on their resistance and what warframe we bring. I'd recommend us going in pairs and throwing darts at a map to determine which base to hit next, we aren't really bound by the travel times you are."

Steve nodded. "Alright, so that's… fours teams?"

"Three, the liason is on business and one of us is on a personal project."

"Personal Project?" Tony asked.

"Undisclosed as of right now."

Clint huffed and turned back to the map. "What should we call you?" He asked suddenly. "I mean outside of what warframe you're wearing."

"Yeah, that changes on a whim, we need something more… permanent." Bruce chimed in.

"Way ahead of you." Stark said. "I've got a list right here." He began to read out loud. "Maya, Dragon, Libra, Clan Master, Purple, Pharaoh, Arthur, and Grapes."

"Grapes?" Natasha questioned.

Steve snapped his fingers. "The one with us during our escape from SHIELD, her color scheme was green and red-purple."

"I suppose that makes sense. I'll roll with it for now, if that's okay with you guys."

"Indifferent. It will prove useful for the time being." The Equinox told her.

"You mean until you decide to tell us your real names."

"Tony!"

"Oh come on you know they're holding out on us! Steve, you're the one always going on about trust and transparency and stuff. You can't tell me you aren't curious as to who they really are."

Steve made an exasperated noise. "Tony. Stop. They've done nothing but help us. I _am_ curious," here he gave the Vauban a pointed look. "but I trust their judgement. Now if you don't mind-"

"I for one think them excellent and trustworthy warriors." Thor interrupted. "Captain, I think there's not much planning to be done, you tell us where to go, we go and smash the place until we find the scepter."

Tony looked to Maria, who had taken up a position at the bar at some point during the discussion. She nodded. "Yeah, the new jet's ready, I streamlined it and now it's ready to go whenever, just need to load it up with supplies."

Steve gave Tony an appraising look. "Load it up, we move tomorrow morning. Get some rest everyone."

"You too Captain." Natasha said. "You need sleep too. Like actual sleep. Not, whatever you were doing when I came to get you." She walked over and grabbed the papers from Steve's hand, "I'll get these sorted." and left before he could say anything in protest.

The Vauban and Rhino shared a look. "We'll go ahead and get started. Any preferences Captain?"

"Not specifically. Maybe go for the bases outside Europe first, so we don't have to travel as far." Steve yawned.

"Understood. There will be no bases left outside Europe by the time you arrive there." All three warframes left the room, leaving the Avengers to go about their preparations.

* * *

Strucker looked on as one by one the HYDRA bases and storehouses around the globe were wiped off the map.

"Why don't we send them the new weapons? They might be able to defend themselves." The advisor flinched as another point on the map went dark.

"It would take too long, and they would fall anyway, which would show our hand. Continue development. We must finish the improved shield before they get here."

* * *

Another search beam swept by. They had been on high alert since they'd begun hearing reports of other bases going dark. The soldier gripped his gun tighter. From the footage salvaged from the cameras trying to hide was useless, so their CO had decided to light the place up as much as possible to spot them more easily.

No hiding places means an easy target right?

The soldier again turned his gaze out to the forest, before continuing his patrol route through the double layered doors and back inside. He gave a nod to the two watching the door. They nodded back.

He took a couple more steps before pausing at the feeling of a fishing line around his neck. Overcome with a sense of nausea he fell backwards and saw, upside down, the two guards behind him fall to pieces in a torrent of red. He heard a thump outside his range of vision as the floor around his head was slowly covered in blood.

* * *

Elsewhere, another squad was rushing to armor up. They had caught a glimpse of their assailant on their way here; a thin female-like creature with horns arching back from her head, upon which dangled ornate chain links. She was colored blood red and bone white, laced with electric blue. Her eyes portrayed a cold indifference that somehow mocked those she felled as she danced through hailstorms of bullets with inhuman ease.

The air shuddered around them but they kept running for the locker room. With practiced ease they all went straight for their personal power armor, prototypes they'd been sent before SHIELD fell.

Someone down the line was the first to touch their lock pad. A flash of light and they flew backward into someone across the room. They both hit that guy's locker and sparks flew. When the light show ended, their medic checked for a pulse. None.

The squad looked at each other in silence, they _had_ to get their suits on to defend their stations, but now it was a crapshoot whether they would die trying. They braced themselves and tried again. Thankfully, most of them survived the second try. They suited up just in time to hear the coordinator tell them to secure Vault F.

"Time to get f'ed at Vault F eh?" Someone said.

No one laughed.

* * *

There was only one entrance to this section of the building, and the cameras had confirmed the assailant was working their way towards the heavy assault team. They stood, lined up behind cover hastily made from scrap metal picked up on the way. Anything they could get their hands on. The command center had gone silent some minutes ago, after about thirty seconds of sustained screaming. Someone coughed.

The lights outside the hallway spluttered and the space was cast into shadow. Everyone brought their weapons to bear on the doorway. A pair of pale eyes appeared above amid a constellation of blue lights and someone immediately fired upon the thing. The bullet sparked off shoulder plate and into the nothingness. The eyes looked down, and a bright light appeared and illuminated a pair of hands performing a complex weave around it. Before anyone else could fire the light was thrown towards them, sprouting deadly lasers like sunbeams. In seconds the walls were covered in scorch lines. The few lasers that made it through the doorway carved both cover and covered to pieces.

So naturally the ones left standing opened fire.

The constellation became a blur, but no more sparks glanced off its armor. It came barreling toward the guards, unstoppable in its dance. Those who specialized in close quarters made their way forward, their heavy armor protecting them from laser fire somewhat more than their compatriots'.

It didn't do them any good.

By the time the thing had reached the front lines the walls were more scorch marks than paint and anyone not energy shielded was dead.

A huge flat blade flashed out at the end of a long pole and bounced off a shock trooper's shield. He died with an ignorant smile on his face when the next swing came just under a second later.

* * *

Theris delicately stepped over the corpses of the fallen HYDRA soldiers. Teli had been particularly brutal with them, one guy had been split nearly in half, his spine laid bare over a makeshift metal blunt. Theris looked up at her. She was staring at the door at the far end of the hallway. "What is it?" He asked.

"Something." The more experienced tenno told him. Her tone implied more than the reply itself, and the void link supplied even more meaning. This was important.

Theris contacted Matariel. "Clan master? We've got something."

"What is it?"

Teli had already made her way into the vault and bursted their leader an image of the scene along with her impressions of the place as a whole.

"...That does seem important. Your next missions are solo so I want Mirage to move on to the next base while Harrow defends the area until our ambassador makes her way there."

Teli projected a feeling of confusion that matched Theris'.

"This find pertains to the business she is on right now." Matariel responded in a tone that left no room for questions. "Stay there and make sure no humans come along and ransack that place."

Theris and Teli sent their affirmations and the Mirage made her way out of the hall, pointedly not stepping in any viscera on her way out. Theris, on the other hand, didn't bother. Since he was meant to scare humans off the premises blood on his feet would be useful. He stepped into the vault, steel blue warframe turned mud brown in the dull red emergency lighting. Before him sat a series of small glass containers, each containing lump of of some strange metal. It didn't take a master analyst to realize these were valuable and likely a centerpiece to the base's function. Picking one of the containers up, Theris noted that the metal was rather light for it's unrefined state. A quick scan brought up no results, meaning it was foreign to the origin system, and not something that a Sentient would produce either.

Certainly strange.

"Avalon. Do the humans have record of this metal?"

"Yes. The substance is known to them as Vibranium. Though on par, or even weaker than many alloys found in the origin system in terms of strength and durability, it possesses properties abnormal to any other metal. Most notably the ability to absorb kinetic energy at a prodigious rate."

Theris hummed at this. "Is it valuable?"

"The amount present here easily passes eight figures."

"Neat." Theris placed the container back in it's rack and continued to walk around the room.

"I am approaching your location." Siren spoke through the void link. Moments later she stepped through the vault door dressed as a Loki. Theris met her by the Vibranium containers.

"The clan master said this would be related to whatever business you are on?" He left the implied question unasked, hoping she would answer anyway.

"Mmmm." She brought her hand up to her chin. "It does have ties with this metal but I haven't figured out what yet. Whatever it is, this metal appears out of nowhere in quantities that do not make sense. It's almost as if it's being pulled out of a void pocket."

"Only there are none on this Earth."

"Precisely. There is a hole in the world, and where ever it is, there are humans that do not want it to be found."

"You're hiding this fact?" Theris questioned.

"The material is too valuable. Involving humans will trigger a greed reflex so strong it would give a Corpus whiplash. This must be kept quiet."

"That explains the outfit changes." Theris said. Referencing Matariel's demand that all tenno not operating in direct conjunction with the Avengers change their color schemes when conducting raids on HYDRA bases.

"Aye." Siren nodded. "I'm here now. Time for your next assignment."

Theris gave her a slight bow and left for his landing craft. Reviewing the next base's schematics as he went.

* * *

AN: I'm losing my god damn mind over waiting for AAAAAAAvengers Infinity War. (Get it. AAAAA. Because they're screaming all the time?) Anyway, I'll try to get back into the swing of writing. I got hit with the sick today, so I had some time to upload.

The divergence between canon and this fanfiction will become more pronounced from now on. I'm really pleased with where I'm planning to go with this thing and I can't wait until metaphorical feces hits the metaphorical rotary air moving device.

Fun fact Teli made an appearance in the Winter Soldier arc outside her warframe. How many of you spotted it?


	17. Language! ENGLISH!

AN: HEY GUYS I'M FINE I SWEAR.

I'm fine but I'm dead. Because finals.

Here yall go!

* * *

"Captain, I've finished surveying the base. There's nothing important here. No scepter and very little HYDRA tech to even put up a fight with. You'll be done in a couple of hours." Matariel slid across the roof of the building and through the window of the next.

"Any way to make things more difficult for them?" Black Widow asked.

"Well, they've got these really nice looking equipment. I'm gonna go break it." Matariel activated prowl and slipped inside the building through a window.

Tony butted into the conversation. "Hey see if you can't get any information on the scepter's location. I broke their firewall a while back but it was much beefier than most, and I'm guessing they wiped the place before we got here ." He was flying wide circles around the area, keeping watch for anyone trying to escape.

Matariel, who had already made it deep into the base, taken out a half dozen guards, and was prowling toward their computer hub, gave an affirmative. He lightly slid the door open, just enough to move through. No one was here, which was odd, but convenient. He moved over to one of the computers.

"Coroneer. Begin reconstruction."

"Understood."

Matariel stepped back to keep watch, only to find cold steel pressed against the back of his head. He froze.

"Never thought we'd be able to sneak up on one of you. But here we are."

Matariel decloaked and slowly turned to face whoever it was. The woman was wearing some sort of battle armor. Padded along the forearms, shins, and feet with a dark metal.

Vibranium.

"Only one of its kind. The soles cancel out any sound, makes it nice and easy to sneak up on targets. Not even you monsters could hear me coming." Her blonde hair was pulled back tightly and her blue eyes shone with glee.

"Operator. Reconstruction complete. I have everything."

"Thanks." Matariel began scanning through the data. "Oh. Send this to Stark." He patched into Iron Man's suit. "Hey guess what I just found."

"Helpful. Alright gang round up. Clan master's gonna clean this up."

Matariel sighed to himself. _Seriously considering at least giving them our names since they refuse to call us by warframe._

The woman had somehow managed to fill the silence with bragging for almost a minute now. Impressive, really. A backflip kick relieved her of her gun and a roundhouse send her back through the door. An ID scan showed she was wanted for murder in several countries. A moment's consideration put two bolto rounds through her knees. The tenno grabbed the gun off the ground and shattered it against the floor. The woman started screaming.

"Alright, I'm done cleaning up. Iron man you are free to contact the local authorities."

"Roger. JARVIS is making the calls now. I… oh hey. This is good."

"What is it?" Captain America asked.

"Solid lead on the Scepter. Records of a huge number of trucks moving rapidly across the Sokovian border. Apparently it looked really serious."

"Is the Iron Legion ready?"

"Will be by the time we get there."

"Alright Avengers, let's get moving."

As their fancy new jet arched towards their extraction point, flanked by a tenno landing craft, Black Widow asked. "Where to?"

A name slide across the HUD in front of Tony's face.

"Sokovia."

* * *

"Are we sure sending in four tenno is necessary?" Siren asked.

"It's more than likely the base we've been looking for. I don't see why not. It's not like there are many more bases to search, the rest can be handled slower and solo." Rain responded. The two were flying to Europe after busting a HYDRA base in New Zealand.

"Yeah, but _four_?"

"I'm on-site, looking at these defenses. This base is serious business."

Surprise rippled through the void link. "I can hardly believe that it would necessitate three of us to bring down a human base." said Polis.

"It doesn't. If you have anything better to do you are free to abstain." An image passed across the link to every tenno. A solid building surrounded by mountains and covered in an energy shield. A small town could be seen in the background. "That energy shield is industrial. Breaching it will be difficult." Matariel continued. "I'm also wary of the scepter, he's had it for a while now, who knows what he's come up with."

"Can't be too bad. I saw the footage. They were fleeing from something. If they had come up with serious tech from the scepter they wouldn't have had to." Rain pointed out.

Gemma spoke up. "They could have been fleeing _toward_ a safer area, seeing as we're the ones coming after them."

"Speculation is irrelevant. There are actors on site. I support bringing four tenno. The scepter will be secured, and we must be there." When no one replied to Sandon's words, Matariel spoke again.

"My point stands." He switched to human channels. "Captain, what's your ETA?"

"Give us 6 hours to be on site, but I want to attack early morning to keep some element of surprise on our side. I'll send you our landing site when we touch down. How many of you will be there?"

"I'm assigning four of us to accompany you, if this is the scepter's location I don't want any chance of it slipping through our fingers."

"Sure thing. Captain out." Steve closed the channel.

Matariel returned to addressing the other tenno. "All right. All important question: Who's going?"

"What is your proposed composition?" Polis queried.

"Looking at the place, it's probably got a lot of guns. So Loki. It is likely the personnel will be the best equipped of any so far. Equinox and Volt for quick response and damage mitigation. Fourth slot open to suggestion."

"Nyx?"

"I'd rather have something that can take a hit or two."

"If you're bringing the Loki, then I'll get Equinox." Gemma said. "Let's give the new guy the Volt."

"Hey I'm not-" Theris tried to protest.

"No objection here. And for the fourth?"

"I'm feeling Khora today." Rain said as whimsically as he could manage.

"Alright that's everything, those not coming go on standby with big guns. I want to be able to drop the hammer on them if need be. Finish your current assignments and make your way here. The humans will be here in a few hours and I would like to know the terrain by then, perhaps clear landing options while we're at it." Matariel closed off the void connection and began to make his way down the valley, archwing would be too noisy this close, so he had left it on the other side of the mountain. Taking aim with his Ivara's Artemis bow, he shot off a zipline towards the perimeter their enemy had set up.

* * *

Tony woke to the sound of the jet's rear door opening. Clint and Natasha were already awake and Steve was just getting up. Thor was still passed out, a loud snore confirming his ability to sleep through anything. It took a moment to realize they were still in the air.

"What?" Steve voiced to room in general.

"One of the warframes has decided to board the jet for some reason." Clint told him. "Don't ask me why I don't know why they do anything."

Tony made his way to the pilot seat and took the wheel. He took a brief assessment of their location. "We're still about half an hour out." He told the other Avengers. "I'm going to bring us in low."

"Good idea." A new voice spoke from the jet's speakers. "I have a recommended path of travel already mapped out." The console beeped and a line appeared on the jet's map. At the same moment a humanoid figure landed on the ramp with the same finesse as one stepping off an escalator.

"Wow that is a lot of gold. And… is that a nose?"

"No. It's a horn. Void knows why the orokin sculpted the warframes like they did."

"That's a Volt, isn't it?" Tony swiveled in his chair to face them. "God of thunder, meet lightning ninja."

Thor let out a mighty snort before rolling over in his sleep.

The warframe gave a light shrug. "I've also come to inform you of the squad composition that will be accompanying you. Loki, Equinox, Volt, and Khora. If you need any information on how the frames operate in battle now is the time. While it is not necessary, you knowing our behavior makes it easier to work around you."

"Not us working together, mind you, you working around us lowly humans." Tony's voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"In so many words, yes."

"Why do I even bother."

"The more you know about how specific warframes act the easier it will be to predict what we will do, which means we don't have to explain as much, which would slow us down. The void communication we share with each other conveys more than just words, which is something your communication devices are unable to do."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Tony turned back to driving the jet.

After a moment of silence Natasha spoke up. "So who wants to wake the sleeping god?"

The warframe shrugged and flicked it's wrist. A blinding crack arched across the space between them and struck Thor square in the chest, to which he jerked awake and jackknifed to his feet, ready for battle. He whipped his head around, looking for the threat, only to meet the deadpan stares of everyone else in the room.

"So… are we there yet?"

"We are… now." The jet vibrated as they landed. They disembarked quickly as they could. The warframes were already waiting for them.

Gemma patched into their earpieces. "The perimeter is well patrolled. Stealing a jeep won't be difficult. You can use that to get in quickly."

"What about you guys?" Clint asked, flicking his bow open.

"Volts can supercharge other warframes to increase their movement and reaction speed by several orders of magnitude. Keeping up with a human jeep won't be difficult." The Equinox paused to check the chamber of an ornate rifle with two huge glass prongs sticking out the top and bottom. The long purple and yellow strips of whatever the warframes were made of drifted slightly in the wind, while the other tenno stood slightly off from the rest of the Avengers.

"You say you're getting us a ride?" Captain America asked. "Where should we pick it up? Bringing it back here would take too long."

"Just follow behind us. We'll meet you on the way." Matariel answered. "Iron man, I'm sending you a small upgrade so you can keep track of our whereabouts."

"Received. And just so you know I would have had one of these in a week or two."

"Sure." Rain shot back, as the tenno began to close around the Volt. All four of of them pulsed with golden electricity. "Don't get lost!" And they were gone into the morning mist.

"Ok, yeah, that's fast." Clint said, pulling his jaw back up. He looked around. "Who's up for a jog?"

Iron man and Thor both launched into the air.

"You boys up for a race?"

"C'mon, you know I'd win."

"I don't know Steve, I think Hawkeye might have a leg up on you."

"How about we go by first take down." Clint asked. "That way us normal people have a chance from range. Ready go." He sprinted into the woods.

The remaining two looked at each other with identical expressions of exasperation. Together they started jogging toward their destination.

* * *

They hadn't been jogging long when the roar of a jeep came rolling over a nearby hill. Hawkeye was at the wheel with a smug look on his face.

"Shut up Hawkeye. I'm driving."

"Yes ma'am."

* * *

Soon they were swerving along a snow covered path with energy blasts fly over their head and explosions sounding off so often they almost blurred together into a single noise. Steve had hijacked a motorcycle at some point and was throwing his shield around as he maneuvered between the trees, occasionally playing host to a warframe balanced with one foot on the motorcycle and the other on his back, shooting at any enemy that came within range. The other warframes kept pace with the use of Volt's speed and exceptional parkour off the trunks of any and all trees. Even the enemy armor that was equipped with rudimentary flight could not effectively make use of it, since more often than not they were shot out of the sky from _above_ by Stark or a warframe leaping off a tree.

A security checkpoint came into view on the road ahead, but before Black Widow could make the decision to slow down a massive green laser lanced out from somewhere in the canopy and melted through the iron gates, allowing the jeep to punch through. Beyond that the road was filled with defenses and the jeep soon had to be ditched in front of a line of Czech Hedgehogs. Steve jumped the motorcycle over it and the other two followed on foot. They were close enough now that it didn't matter.

Tony broke off and made for the main building. He tried a close pass over the roof to shake the enemy firing solution, but ran head first into an invisible wall.

"Shit!" Tony yelled.

"Language!" Steve scolded.

The Khora tripped over a dead body and plowed straight through a bunker. It looked around to make sure no one saw, and continued running.

"JARVIS what's the view from upstairs?" The spangled hero continued.

"The central building is protected by some sort of energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other HYDRA base we've taken. None of the bases the Warframes brought down had this level of defense either."

Thor, landing on a running soldier, said. "Then Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this kind of defense without it. At long last." A flak blast took out a soldier about to land on Thor from behind. The Volt who fired it nodded briefly.

"At long last is lasting a little long." Natasha spoke up.

"The element of surprise has a very short half life, we need to speed up." Gemma chimed in.

"Wait. No one's gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said 'Language'?"

"Nope. Not at all." Matariel deadpanned, swinging his great hammer zaw, Aldervine, sending several soldiers flying.

"Sorry. It just slipped out."

"You're a silly old man." Rain said.

"Sir, the city is getting hit by stray fire." JARVIS reported.

"Send in the Iron Legion." Tony replied.

At the same time, Matariel commanded. "Khora, retreat to the city to protect the civilians. Stark, I recommend telling those robots to help shoot down incoming fire. I know the normal routine would be to be to corral them into safer locations, but your name doesn't hold much weight with these people. Station the Legion on the outskirts between the base and the city."

"But we need to let them know what's going on-"

"No we don't. Action is better in this case."

"Do it Tony." Hawkeye broke in, taking aim at another bunker.

"Fine."

The archer loosed an explosive arrow and braced for the shockwave.

Silence.

He loosed another.

Silence.

He took aim for a third time but instead took a hard blow to the side, sending him tumbling. He struggled to his feet in time to see a silver haired young man in a loose jogging outfit look down at him with a smirk.

The man shook his head. "You didn't see that coming?" He asked. Then he vanished before Hawkeye could take aim at him.

The distraction, however, was enough. A turret popped out of the bunker and fired, nicking his ribs and sending him tumbling again.

"Clint!" Natasha panicked. At the same time, Steve was knocked into the air. His training took over and he managed to land on his feet. "Clint's hit, I need backup!"

"Coming." The soft voice of Gemma replied.

"We have an enhanced on the field. Keep your guard up."

The Equinox sped onto the scene, she flew overhead and dove into the front windows of the bunker feet first. Moments later, every guard within thirty meters collapsed in a wave of lacerations. Her night form emerged, and swiftly made her way over to the downed Avenger. Another pulse and the wound closed, though it still left behind a nasty dent.

"I've healed the wound superficially. As it would normally heal by itself, but it's only temporary. That blast burnt through your ribs, you should withdraw."

"I'll get him out." Thor said as he landed, sending white powder everywhere. "Stark. Have you found a way inside yet?"

"I'm almost there, don't worry." Tony said, shooting down three more soldiers. Moments later there was a larger explosion and Tony reported the shield was down.

Steve joined the group. "This new enhanced is a blur. Did you see what he looks like?"

"Yeah," Clint said from the ground. "Silver hair, arrogant little-" He grunted as Thor picked him up. "Back to jet. Right." Thor swung his hammer and they were gone.

* * *

 _These Avengers weren't as tough as they were made out to be._ Pietro thought as he sped by them. That bow and arrow guy didn't stand a chance and while Captain stripes and stars had hurt a bit to punch, he still couldn't catch the speedster. Pietro went in for a pass on the standing trio, landing another solid blow on Captain America was easy and-

Was that alien thing tracking him?

He did a double take as he banked through the trees for another pass. Sure enough, the grey and yellow thing's head was almost keeping pace with where he was. But Pietro wasn't close to going at full speed, with a smirk, he increased his pace and went dove for a punch on the featureless visage.

As he charged he became aware of a black line rapidly growing out from one of the trees in front of him, he went to duck it and realized it was a katana blade. Turning as he ran, he saw the alien face of another creature, a warframe, he absently remembered one of the scientists calling them. He watched as the thing pulse with energy in slow motion, and suddenly the blade doubled in speed. Worried, Pietro sped up again and continued for the blow. Only, his target had turned a deep grey and purple, and was in the middle of twirling her hands in the air. Another pulse of energy, and a bolt of adrenaline ran through his system.

Pietro was slowing down. And it was getting worse the closer he got to the group. It was like in dreams when you suddenly can't run as fast, or you run and don't go anywhere. Turning his head, Pietro saw the other warframe approaching far faster than it had any right to. The blade swinging in his direction at a speed the average person would consider only slightly slowed down. Pietro did the only thing he could, and before the thing could get any closer he turned, ducking the swinging blade, and escaped as fast as he could.

* * *

"He was smarter than I gave him credit for. He ran away before we could get him. No matter, we've scared him. Time to secure the scepter." Theris said over their ear pieces.

Steve nodded to the group. "Let's go. Stark?"

"I've got eyes on the prize."

"Alright, time to go after Struck-"

"Done." Matariel interrupted.

"Alright, time to secure things out here."

"Good plan."

"And for gosh sake watch your language!"

Steve sighed and closed the channel. "I'm going in to flush out anyone left behind. You guys close up shop out here." With that, he jogged toward the nearest entrance.

Once inside, he quickly made his way up toward the top of the building, intending to work his way back down and scare everyone out.

"Clan master, Stark, status?"

"Guys, I found something big. And uh, can I get a tenno down here? There's something they'll want to see." Stark sounded nervous, and shaken. Stark never sounds nervous or shaken.

"On my way." Matariel said. "Captain, I'll be passing you on my way, I'll drop off Strucker with you and make my way from there."

Steve was about to reply when an ominous feeling washed over him. He looked around, hoping to catch a glance of its source. He briefly caught sight of a female human before being thrown against the wall. The young woman raised her hand for another strike, but stopped when a grey and orange blur flew into the room and slammed into her. The warframe had Strucker over its shoulder and a huge staff with what looked like a hammer head. The tenno dropped the limp body on the floor and brandished the hammer staff menacingly.

The girl's face morphed from from determination to concentration to pain to fear over the course of a second or two before she sprinted off, the warframe made to go after her but the roof collapsed between she and them, making pursuit impossible. The tenno took a moment to analyze the rubble before jumping down a nearby set of stairs and vanishing around a corner.

* * *

Matariel passed through the hidden doorway, senses on high alert. The girl was definitely something to worry about. Her mere presence had brought about significant amount transference static, something that only happens when mental warfare is in play. She brought down the ceiling as well. Telekinetic and telepathic. He reached the bottom of the stairs. The first thing he saw was the huge Chitauri leviathan held up by scaffolds and chains. As he stepped forward, he caught sight of Stark, holding the scepter with a gauntlet covered hand, and several odd daises with mechanical arms seemingly paused in the middle of whatever they were doing. He glanced over to see what Tony was looking at and froze.

Something that most certainly should not be there sat trapped in some sort of hard light construct.

Deep in the Jungles of the Congo, Siren tensed. On top of a normal looking building in New York, Sandon nodded to himself. Theris stopped in his tracks. Teli tilted her head, eyes fixated on the Great Pyramid of Giza. Matariel frozen in place, uttering a single word.

"Sentient."

* * *

AN:

THIS is why I won't commit to an upload schedule. I cannot keep one.

Haven't seen Infinity War yet and I'm super nervous because I have IDEAS but they might be invalid once I see it and long story short the story is having an identity crisis and I don't know what to do.

But I have Civil War and Homecoming/Black Panther/Doctor Strange/Interlude thing between now and then. Speaking of, I'm rolling most of the other movies into one story arc thing. In my mind Homecoming and Black Panther occur nearly simultaneously and Dr. Strange happened during/slightly before Winter Soldier. But I'm not looking forward to figuring out how I'm going to tell that part of the story. Actually. If you have any ideas or recommendations as to how to do that let me know. Current top idea is just alternating chapters (One chapter for Homecoming, one for Black Panther, one for Dr. Strange flashback maybe, etc.) but that would require planning and such. I'm not giving up though, not till this era of comic book movies is done. And probably for a while after they make movies faster than I write apparently.

Moral of the story: What the hap is f**kening.

Side note

Gravity Falls is a neat show.

/Side Note


	18. In which NOTHING HAPPENS

AN: I'm here. I'm finding the idea of editing previous chapters is becoming more and more unlikely because of the 90 day thing. And I'm lazy. I had a conversation with a reader that made think, I've been super vague on how the void interacts with this world and I'm rapidly running out of time to iron it out, because plot.

* * *

"Stark, get the scepter out of here. I'll take care of this thing." Matariel's voice was terse, his posture stiff.

"How is it neutralized?" Rain asked his clan leader.

"Trying to figure that out. I-" The conculyst came to life and rushed him. The loki activated decoy which successfully blocked with his great hammer. He then swirled around behind and swung the hammer into it's back. An idea popped into his head. "Stark, come back. It came to life again."

"On my way."

As soon as they heard the metal footsteps hit the bottom floor, the conculyst collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Huh.

Matariel waved his hand at Iron man, who had a repulsor aimed at the conculyst. "Time to science. Take the scepter to the top of the stair, no further."

Tony took a couple of steps back up the stairs. Sure enough, the Conculyst erupted into action one more.

"Back down." Matariel said, blocking a strike from above. Tony stepped back down and the conculyst collapsed again.

"Hey, if this scepter keeps that thing down, shouldn't we keep and study both?" Stark sounded eager.

"Honestly, if you can figure anything out from a sentient drone you're welcome to it. I have no objection. Take them."

"Yay." As Tony picked up the folded body of the sentient Matariel contacted Sandon over a private void link. "Is this what you meant by 'actors on site'?" He asked.

"Yes, a sentient dropship attacked the last base of operations."

"And that's why they moved here. But we would have found them anyway. My question remains unanswered."

"The time that moving bought them is more to our benefit than theirs, trust me on this. You know I must not be specific at times."

"I know." Matariel sighed. "An instrument plays what it is told."

"Yes. I must get back to my mission now." Sandon closed the link. Matariel gave the room one last look around before scanning the leviathan and leaving the way he had come.

Outside Thor had brought the jet to the base and Tony went to load both the scepter and the conculyst. Thor stepped out of the jet and gave the drone a concerned glance. He strutted over to the nearest tenno, Gemma, and pulled her aside. "I am familiar with many technologies, but not that one. What is it?"

Gemma took a long moment to respond. "You have your enemies, we have ours. The short version of the story is that they were terraforming machines made to make the Tau system -Tau Ceti here I think- habitable. But at some point they gained sentience and returned for revenge."

"Revenge? For what?"

"We don't know. All we know is they want us dead. They were given the ability to adapt to anything except the void. Which is the only reason we were able to fight them. Our original bodies couldn't handle the energy, but the warframes could channel it in ways never before seen."

"It must have been quite the battle." Thor made to congratulate the Equinox.

"It wasn't. It was a war. And much of our memories are lost of that particular time, all we know is that the war ended. Only two actual sentient deaths have ever been recorded. One turned out to be a ruse."

"And the other?"

"It's mind is dead but it's many bodies remain, scouring what is now called the Plains of Eidolon, their inborn ability to terraform always at odds with a nearby orokin tower's ability to maintain the ecosystem. Some of the larger pieces still pose a danger, and many tenno are outright banned from venturing out at night due to the danger."

"And that is one of them?"

"No. That is the second smallest kind of fragment."

Thor took this with an appraising look at the folded creature.

Gemma glanced up as the Legionnaires few in from the city, they would be supervising handing over the HYDRA soldiers over to the authorities. She called down her landing craft, leaving Thor to muse.

* * *

"Did you get the scepter?"

"Yeah we did. Wish you were here, it was a lot of fun." Natasha smiled at Banner's face on the screen.

"Nah with those tenno around I don't think we'll get a code green ever again. And I'm thankful for that."

"Jury's still out on whether tenno or the hulk are more dangerous. Besides, we have the lullaby. It works, trust me."

"It's not you I don't trust."

Natasha didn't have any response, so she said goodbye and gave way when Tony stepped up to the screen. "Hey just a heads up Helen Cho is on her way. Clint took a hit and we'll need her expertise." He told the other scientist.

"I'll let her in." Bruce closed the channel and Natasha sat down next to where Clint lay while Tony walked over to where Thor and Steve were looking at the scepter. He glanced at the remains of the conculyst. _If I can make an armor, or better yet, make legionnaires out of that materiel. We'd be sitting pretty._

"Feels good, we've been after this thing for longer than I'd like." Tony said. "Not that I didn't enjoy our little outings, but…"

"This ends it." Thor said with a satisfied smile.

"It's not quite over yet though. We don't know what this thing has been used for." Steve stared at the alien device thoughtfully. "Since when was Strucker capable of human experimentation?"

The Khora's metal heels clicked on the jet's floor behind them. "I'm more concerned with how it managed to stop a sentient drone. Further, this type can't travel over distance, which means there's a dropship out there somewhere that we don't know about."

"Is there any way to track it down?" Steve asked.

"Technically, but we don't have the blueprints and during the war what sensors could detect them were rare and advanced even for our time. No chance of it now."

Tony decided to but back in. "Hey Thor, I know you're taking the scepter back, but what about the conculyst?"

"Those creatures are dangerous, but I'd rather keep them near their only known weakness. It will stay here, with the warframes."

"Speaking of staying, will you? For the party, I mean."

"Yes, a victory should be honored with revels. I would like to see how a tenno parties."

"We've only ever been to one party before. You can count on me at least."

"Yeah, who doesn't love revels? Captain?"

"This put an end to the chitauri and HYDRA, so yeah, revels."

* * *

"I'm officially moving that we reveal ourselves. At least to the Avengers, human executives are optional." Rain gently stroked one of Venari's ears as he addressed all seven of his comrades.

"All arguments have been made at this point, all there is left is to vote." Gemma said, looking out the window of her orbiter at the planet below, the window's HUD indicated the locations of every orbiter nearby as bright red lights. "The presented action is as such: We show them our real selves, but with our hoods up to keep our faces hidden. We introduce ourselves and our real names, but ask that while on mission they refer to us by warframe while on mission. Further revelation is left to the discretion of each individual, while revealing another is up to the other. Voting begins. Theris."

"Nay."

"Sandon."

"Abstain."

"Polis."

"Aye."

"Teli."

"Aye."

"Siren."

"Aye."

"Rain."

"Aye."

"Matariel."

"Nay."

"And I mediated the vote, there is no need for a tiebreaker. The motion carries. The second dream is no longer under lock and key."

* * *

Theris turned from where he had been watching Bruce work. They had been studying how different warframe's healing abilities affected the biology of an organism. So far the only ability that didn't create cancer cells was a Trinity's Well of Life, and only if tightly controlled over a long period of time. Bruce had left to go check on Clint a moment ago, and Theris was curious how the human healing machine worked. He stepped into the room where the archer was laid.

"-regeneration cradle could do this in… twenty minutes?" The doctor woman was saying.

"Oh he's flatlining. Call it. Time?" Tony set down a tray of some odd green drinks.

"No no, I'm going to live forever. I'm gonna be made of plastic."

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton. Your own girlfriend won't- Who's this?" Helen spotted the warframe standing in the door.

"That's Trinity, the warframe dedicated to healing, I was just analyzing how their healing affected Earth biology, it's quite fascinating. Remind and I'll send you the data."

"I look forward to it. With such advanced biotechnology both willing and able to help us advance, we'll be leaving clunky mechanical inventions behind us." Helen turned to address the warframe directly and bowed slightly. "Thank you." The warframe nodded in return.

As they continued to converse Tony pulled Bruce outside into the main lab. "So we were wondering how Strucker got so inventive."

"Well I wasn't but I get what you mean." Bruce gestured for Tony to continue.

"I've been analysing the gem inside the scepter and the sentient fighter drone recovered at the scene. The drone is made some material I can't identify and any attempts at dissection become unable to cut the thing after only a few seconds. The gem, on the other hand…" Tony flicked his datapad to show a clockwork hologram of interlocking wheels and spheres. "You may recognise…?"

"JARVIS."

"Doctor."

"This guy started out as a natural language UI, but now he runs more of the business than anyone besides Pepper. Top of the line."

"Before the cephalons came around." Bruce pointed out.

"Yeah yeah, but I'm told they don't count for whatever reason. Anyway." Tony waved dismissively. "The point is," He flicked his datapad again and a huge blue light filled the lab with twisting plates surrounding a swirling cloud at its center. "Meet the competition."

Bruce stepped back in awe. "It's beautiful."

"It looks like it's-"

"Like it's thinking. This… isn't a human mind, but this looks like neurons firing. This is incredibly complex."

Tony nodded. "Down in Strucker's lab I saw some fairly advanced robotics work. They deep sixed the data but I can only guess they were knocking on a very particular door."

"...Artificial intelligence."

"Yeah. I think we found the key to creating Ultron."

"What, your fantasy project?"

" _Our_ fantasy project, and it's not a fantasy anymore. With this we could be sitting on a beach sipping any drink we wanted, turning brown instead of green, not having to worry about pulling out Veronica."

"Hey don't hate I helped design Veronica."

"The point is," Tony emphasized, "that if we get this to work we don't have to worry about aliens showing up to the party anymore, and trust me, they will."

Bruce gave Tony a confused look. "Aren't we, like, one to one on good aliens versus bad aliens right now?"

"We don't know the tenno agenda yet. I'd like to quit while we're ahead."

"Tony this isn't quitting, this is delegating."

"It's creating a successor. I'd like to apply this to the Iron Legion protocol but JARVIS can't download a data schematic this dense we can only do it while we have the scepter here, that's three days. Give me three days and we'll put a suit of armor on the world itself."

"Sounds cold." Bruce said.

"I've seem colder. This world needs Ultron."

Bruce sighed. Tony wasn't going to let up, the best Bruce could do was be there in case something went wrong. Together, they set to work.

* * *

Steve was in the shower after working out the next day when he was notified by JARVIS that the tenno wanted to meet with the Avengers about something. Stepping out and towelling off, he exited into the locker room and got dressed before making his way to the main room above the jet's docking bay. Natasha and Clint were already there and Tony could be seen in his lab, working on whatever it was he did up there. Bruce stepped up to the window and waved down at them. He grabbed Tony's arm and they disappeared from view, only to reappear moments later on their way down to the meeting area.

"So what's this about?" Clint asked the room at large.

Steve shrugged. "I don't know. All I know is they want to talk."

"The answer to your question, is that we have decided that it is time time for you to find out what a tenno is." A voice said over the room's speakers. The Avengers turned to look toward a door that just opened, revealing eight warframes in total. At the look on their faces Gemma continued speaking. "A vote was held, and we decided to introduce ourselves in person. We have been allies long enough that you should know who it is you're really dealing with. Up until now you've been using the terms warframe and tenno interchangeably. This is technically not correct."

Matariel stepped forward. "I do not know what each of you know, so I will start from the beginning. The origin system, or Sol system as it is known here, was headed straight for resource collapse. In response the Orokin Empire sent for every Archimedean to propose options to solve the crisis. Countless ideas were proposed, countless people died when their ideas proved unable to solve the problem, even more were punished by association. Finally, a plan was brought forward: terraform the Tau system. It would be accomplished by sending a vanguard of self replicating robots capable of terraforming and gifted with the ability to adapt to any and every harsh condition they came across. But to keep them from returning they were given a weakness: the void is toxic to them. They were sent to the Tau system in one-way containment and left to their schedule."

"I thought you were going to tell us about yourselves, not the thing in the lab." Tony's tone was impatient.

"Be quiet, Stark. The Sentients are as entwined with us as you are with the Ten Rings. Years passed, and the time came for the first colonists to make the void jump to the newly created home. But something went wrong. The ship vanished into the hellspace without a trace."

Rain broke in. "The air was acrid and stale, someone had sabotaged the bio-domes. Food was almost gone, Adults roamed the ship, weapons in hand and murder in their eyes, the power was long gone and the blinding night only lit the outer layers, where the holes were. But, despite this, far from the hordes, there laughter, and play. For the children had come together, the void in their minds and bodies, they came together and were happy."

Matariel resumed talking. "Well after the case of the missing ship was closed, an unknown vessel appeared on sensors. Investigation showed what it was, and it was immediately quarantined. But someone broke it, she was on the original investigation. She entered the ship to discover only children were left on board, and they burned her in the process. A different woman, Margulis, began work on a way to help the children, whose exposure to the void strained their bodies when brought to the real world. New bodies were crafted, new frames for their souls to be transferred into. It was around this time the robots returned, calling themselves Sentient, and declared a war of extermination on the Orokin. The transference project was commandeered, the bodies built for war, to strike at their enemies with a power that could scarcely be comprehended." He let the silence extend for a moment.

"So we fought. The Sentients had gained a resistance to the void. Now, while still unable to adapt, it did not kill them, simply took their self-replication from them. They could make the void jump back to the origin system, but what they brought is what they had. To wage their war, they castrated themselves and rendered their wombs unusable. We fought them, we won. We returned, the nine great Naga drums sounded the end of the Old War. Even the Seven Great Emperors left their sealed homes to attend the celebration. As the last drums faded into silence, the grand hall filled with the screams of the dying. The heroes of the War had turned on their masters and killed them all. The deathless rulers of countless lifetimes were silenced by their greatest of saviors; the survivors of the Zariman Ten-Zero."

"Ten-zero, Tenno." Steve whispered.

"This is who we are. Betrayers, saviors, warrior-gods cast in steel and flesh." As one the tenno stepped out of their warframes. Speaking in their own voices for the first time since revealing to Fury.

"I am Matariel."

"I am Rain."

"I am Gemma."

"I am Polis."

"I am Teli."

"I am Siren."

"I am Sandon."

"I am Theris."

* * *

AN: I don't know this chapter felt rather short. I'm a bit miffed because I had a lot written for the next chapter but had to burn like half of it because I was showing my hand too early. Is anyone else curious as to what the other Avengers did during the three days Tony and Bruce were trying to Ultron? It was a montage in the movie and I don't know what to do with it.

I saw Infinity War. I am sad. I went home and wrote like 2-3 pages of catharsis. It's definitely not going to be an actual part of the story. To be clear Infinity War will be, but the stuff that I wrote after seeing the movie won't be. Way too unbalanced and not good storytelling.

Possible cannon divergence? Idk Thanos vs. Warframes would be a fucking spectacular fight, like I'm not sure Thanos would be able to win if more than four tenno showed up to the fight, especially if the lore I'm throwing around ends up in the final cut. I know for certain the theme music for that fight would be Canon in D Minor by Two Steps From Hell. Just Youtube "tsfh canon in d minor extended" and one of the results will have a mermaid on a rock with a burning ship in the background. That one. That is the theme music for Thanos vs Warframes.

It doesn't fuck about.


	19. That was

I'm alive!

Kind of. This was TECHNICALLY supposed to be up by the first week of July. But I got wrapped up in the spirit of the US holiday, and accidentally didn't. I did keep writing though, even though I had to scrap half the next chapter TWICE.

Without further delay:

* * *

Silence rocked the room.

"You're… children?" Clint asked.

The eight stiffened, despite their masks being on, they were still recognized. Most of the Avengers themselves looked like Clint had grown a second head.

Gemma recovered first. "Of a kind. Our natural lifespan is roughly two to three times yours, so while we look, and for all practical purposes are, adolescent, most of us are pushing 40 years old if you include the years spent in the void, where we did not age properly." Without warning, she opened her Koppra helmet, revealing her eyes, one golden, the other violet.

Bruce wiped his glasses and returned them to his face. "I am astounded at the genetic manipulation required to pull that sort of thing off. And your eyes…" He seemed to catch himself. "Sorry, as I scientist I get carried away."

Gemma smiled at him. "Understandable. I can think of someone else who would do the exact same thing."

"Rain." Teli said as she and her brother opened their helmets, hers a Vahd, his a Varida.

Rain spun on them, placing his hands on his hips in mock indignation. "Hey now. _I_ wouldn't apologize for it." The covering on his Ceno helmet opened to reveal lavender eyes and deep black hair. He saluted in Steve's direction and winked at him.

Matariel, however, did not open his Saita prime helmet. Neither did the other three. Tony noticed this and called them out. "Hey what about you four, you going to show us your faces as well?"

Matariel went to answer, but Sandon beat him to it. "You tell us your secrets, man of iron, we will tell you ours."

The genius had no response for that.

* * *

"Well that was dramatic." Spiderman said.

"I know right." Rain replied, leaning back against his Khora's chest. The two were sat atop an office building, New York spread out around them. "But you should've heard him, Matariel is a serious storyteller, it's enthralling."

"So, you did show them your actual faces?"

"Some did, some didn't. That's up to the individual." Rain tilted his head in the direction of the vigilante. "You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

"I'm going to ignore that."

Rain just laughed. "Anyways, there's going to be a party at the tower in a day or two. I wasn't planning on going, but I've also got nothing better to do."

"Sucks."

"..."

"..."

"Oh come on you're supposed to save me from my boredom you ass."

"Nope. Not a chance. Payback for all the aches and pains you put me through during training."

"Oh come on, a hero isn't supposed to be petty."

"But I'm not a hero, as you insist on pointing out."

"Yeah, because you keep pulling this nonsense. Fine, I'm going to the moon, I'm going to go play in low gravity, and you get to not."

"What? No way! Please? You have to let me come!"

"Nope, a cephalon won't let anyone without void powers onto the ship. Consolation prize, you can keep Grimalkin for the weekend if you want."

"Not a cat person."

"I don't think we can be friends anymore."

"We were friends?"

"I'm leaving." Rain stepped back into his warframe and made to leave. "Besides, you have school tomorrow. Go do your homework."

"Shut up, you're not my mom."

"Thank the void I'm not, you sass too much."

Spiderman laughed and Rain's archwing landed between them.

"Hey wait a minute," the red hero said. "You never let me use an archwing like you promised."

"Fine, this weekend then."

"See you then!" They both waved before Rain blasted off, the bass thud of the engines rocking Spiderman back on his heels. After the tenno left, he sat down heavily and winced in pain.

Getting smashed into a bus by a car hurt.

* * *

Theris sat on a nearby table next to where Siren stood as they watched Tony and Bruce marvel at the sentient's adaptive ability. Theris was outside of his Trinity while Siren stayed inside her Vauban.

"So how goes your search?" He asked.

"I've had the place pegged down for a while now, just approaching them is easier said than done. Vibranium is… I'm not sure how to describe it. It's not just a metal. If the orokin had their hands on it, who knows what would have happened. But these humans are steeped in a culture that is used to being hidden from the rest of the world. And they must have a lot of vibranium. Walking up to their doorstep may not be a good idea. I just don't know."

Theris hummed at the unexpected rant. His crystal blue eyes observed the scientists from behind his Commodore prime helmet. "The mission was left to you. Do what you think is best."

"I know, I know, it's just…" They were interrupted by Bruce walking up and asking Theris to shoot some void energy at the conculyst so they could measure what happened. After he returned to what he was doing, an idea popped into Theris' head.

"I've been reading world history. They're hiding from their so called 'white man's world'. However, your ethnicity matches closest with Central America pre European discovery, specifically Maya descent. Perhaps if you used that, you could reach them."

Siren nodded thoughtfully at this. "I will consider it, though playing the race card seems to have a bit of a stigma attached to it depending on who you're talking to. Thank you for the idea though."

"Well you could always grab a couple of tenno and give them a show of force." Theris threw a cocky smile from behind his helmet. Siren shook her head and left the room.

"Hey what were you talking about?" Tony asked from across the room.

"Nothing." Theris told him.

* * *

Steve walked up to the Zephyr sitting on the railing before the massive windows. Its mat green and purple colors stood out vibrantly against the wood colored floors and the glittering mid day skyline. "Nat thought she recognized you. She finally figured it out." He said.

Teli continued to look out the window.

Continuing anyway, he explained. "At the computer store when we were on the run together. You took the employee's attention off of us before he could recognize me. I wanted to thank you."

The warframe turned its head to regard him and nodded. At the sound of metal footsteps they both turned their heads to see a Wukong making its way up to them. Polis briefly glanced at Steve before locking gazes with the Zephyr. A silent conversation passed between them. After a moment, they broke their gaze.

"We're going to finish off what HYDRA bases we know of. You coming?" Polis asked.

"Nah." Steve waved the idea off. "I'm going to rest. After capturing Strucker there's not much else we need to do. Mobilizing the Avengers just to bring down what's left would take too much time and effort when you can do it in under a day."

Polis chuckled. "You're learning."

"Hey, is Theris still using his Trinity? I have a request."

"Perhaps I can answer your question."

"How far does a Trinity's healing ability extend?"

"In what capacity?"

Teli tilted her head slightly. "Carter." She said.

Steve nodded. "I want to know if you can heal her."

There was a moment's pause. "I have accessed the medical record. She reaches the end of her life. A Trinity could ease ailments and possibly extend her life, but it would require increasingly frequent treatment, up to the point where one would need to be at her side constantly. We cannot save her, but we can ease some of her pain and improve her memory. Theris has already agreed to do so."

"I can't thank you enough."

"Thank us by being a better person than you are now, hard as that may be." Polis said as Teli hopped down from the railing. She waved at Steve before they disappeared out the door.

* * *

Pietro turned from where he was keeping watch to check on his sister. She still had that haunted look about her, but at least some color had returned to her face. "You willing to talk about it now?" He asked her.

She finally nodded. "That thing, the warframe… I've never felt such rage and, and _disgust_ from anything before." She grimaced at the memory. "By all rights it shouldn't have been able to control itself, not with that kind of emotion, but its movements were so incredibly well calculated. If they are all like that we will have to be careful. Especially if what you said about them almost being able to catch you is true."

"Hey, do you think I would lie about that?"

"No. If anything you'd play it off, saying they hadn't gotten close."

"Well they didn't." Pietro grumbled to himself.

Wanda just sniggered. "Come on. Just because there's no sign of them following us doesn't mean they aren't. We had better keep moving." Together they set off through the back alleys they knew so well.

* * *

The party itself was quite the experience for the tenno. People they had never interacted with before flooded the tower, dressing in strange clothing and drinking drinks of varying colors and smells.

"Humans are weird." Polis summed up. He was sitting on the arm of Matariel's chair and looking around. They both had their helmets closed so as not to make their young appearance known to the general public.

"I would tend to agree." The clan leader responded. "I did not anticipate Hawkeye calling us out like that."

"He is a master assassin." The brawler tenno told him. "Reading body language must be second nature to him." Just then the two caught sight of Rogers and Sam coming up one of the stairs to the platform the tenno were on. Polis leaned back and waved to catch their attention.

"What was that game you were playing on the green fuzz table?"

"That was Billiards. A game of incredible strategy and finesse." Sam said.

Polis made a dismissive gesture. "I figured out it was a physics game, I just wanted to know what it was called. Who won?"

"I did." The flier told them. "Finally able to beat him at something."

Steve gave a good natured shrug. "Hey, I'm out of practice, it's been what, a few decades since I played last."

"Nuh uh you don't get to hide behind that. I know how cryo works from your perspective. You lost fair and square." He turned to take a second look at the tenno and extended a hand. "I don't believe we've met. Sam Wilson. I'm Steve's literal wingman."

"Oh we've met." Matariel said. "Come on, look at this and tell me you don't recognize me." The tenno gestured at his outfit; a Saita prime helmet over a Manduka suit with Saita prime gloves and boots with his characteristic orange metal and grayscale coloration.

The moment Sam realized was written all over his face. Eyes wide, he said. "O- Ooooooh. You're the warframe pilot that got my suit."

"Pilot isn't the right word." Polis interjected. "Our physical bodies don't quite agree with…" He made a vague gesture. "reality in general, the warframes help fix that."

Sam looked at Steve. "Crazy." He said. "Your world is crazy."

"Be it ever so humble."

Polis laughed and he and Sam struck up a conversation about Archwing tech and flying. Steve wandered off and Matariel spotted Siren, elegantly poised in her Octavia amidst a crowd of patrons, entertaining them by playing music from a mallet she held in one hand.

Sandon's voice interrupted the clan leader's musings. "I think I overstepped. The sorcerer supreme wishes to meet with you."

"Sorcerer supreme? What did you- I'll meet him on top of Stark tower." Matariel spared a glance at Polis, who met his gaze and nodded, then stepped away without drawing attention to himself. He quietly made his way outside, letting the night air wake him up. The roof was thankfully abandoned, and he kneeled in the center of the space, slowly rising in meditation.

After several minutes of silence, a sound not unlike a low grade spin-saw could be heard, coinciding with the appearance of a ring of sparks a few yards away. The tenno stood, quickly pulling his Mirage Prime through the void to his position. He turned, wary, to address the newcomer.

A deep red cape walked through the portal, and attached to it was a man that carried himself with authority.

"How can I help you?" Matariel asked.

The man seemed taken aback. "You seem to have known I was coming."

"My compatriot told me I needed to be up here. Again. How can I help you?"

"My name is Dr. Steven Strange, it is my duty to protect the Earth from threats that might endanger the human population."

The tenno tilted his head slightly. "What happened?" At Strange's confused look, he elaborated. "You didn't show up during the invasion, meaning you likely weren't in your position at that point. Further, you have a mien of experience, but not time. Likely the position was thrust on you mid crisis and you only just adjusted. What did you see that made you come at me now?"

"Touche." The doctor shrugged. "Several weeks ago, one of yours showed up looking to learn the mystic arts. He showed no actual aptitude, only the ability to retain knowledge. Almost immediately he wanted to learn about they eye of Agamotto, a very powerful artifact capable of seeing through time. An hour ago I finally let him see it. It activated the moment he entered the room, something that should not be possible given all the spells that have been placed on it. I judged that a group of people able to cut through our most powerful magic like a scalpel should be considered a threat."

 _That artifact must have been what Sandon was sensing._ Matariel thought. To the magician, he said. "Back in our world there's a group of monks who are able to see through time, assisted by an ancient living tower. Sandon, the tenno you met, had the closest ties to them. He told me he sensed something similar to their power and went in search of it. I guess he found it."

"The eye?"

"Most likely. His ties to their order resulted in some interesting phenomena."

"So not all of you are able to do such things?"

"Quite frankly I have no idea. Our power comes from a place that inherently doesn't make sense. In short: It's a crapshoot."

Dr. Strange brought a hand to his beard in thought. Matariel simply waited. After a second, the magician spoke again. "If I can get you back to your home universe, would you go?"

"Probably not."

"Because I can- wait what? You aren't from this universe, surely you want to return?"

"Some of us have already made friends here and I only have decision making authority on mission. You'd have to convince each one of us individually. I personally am quite invested in watching this world play out. There are over six million of my kind back home, eight or so won't be missed."

"Your friend-"

"Sandon. His name is Sandon."

"-Sandon mentioned a clan, don't you want to see them again?"

"Sure. But there's no benefit to us going back over bringing them here."

The look on Strange's face nearly had Matariel doubled over in laughter, but he maintained his composure, if barely. Thankfully the warframe's lack of facial features made it easier. "Doctor you're not going to win me over emotionally. And you most certainly can't force us out. Your best hope is for us to decide to leave on our own."

"Why do you assume I can't force you out?"

The world around them grew darker. Matariel punctuated his next words with pointed steps forward. "You're mortal, and have a reaction time. A warframe can beat a human on both accounts easily." When he was only inches from the wizard's face, he stopped. The man was tall, but a Mirage Prime could look him dead in the eye. He took a step back, and geometric light formed around his hands.

"Don't." Theris said, decloaking and pressing the cold steel of his destreza against the wizard's neck. After a tense moment, the light dissipated and the rapier was removed.

"You have nothing to fear from us, sorcerer. We mean no harm, but we do have a nasty habit of not hesitating to take action when we so wish. I hope we can maintain good relations, your knowledge is a valuable asset."

"... Fine. But if you misstep there will be consequences." Without another word Dr. Strange opened a portal and stepped through.

After making sure he was gone, Theris collapsed to his knees. "How do you keep yourself upright against someone like that? I only pulled that off because he didn't know we could cloak like that."

"And because he didn't use the eye." Matariel said, stepping over and helping his classmate to his feet. "If he had he would have seen you coming, but he was too startled to think of that. Though… I can see why Sandon is interested in it; there's something about it I can't quite place." He tilted his head in contemplation. "Well, I've got a party to get back to. What are you up to?"

"Siren requested Gemma and I help her with her investigation. We will be flying to Southern Sudan."

"Neat. Have fun." The Mirage Prime stalked off the roof. Theris gathered himself and called down his landing craft.

* * *

When Matariel reentered the party, most people had already left. Now there were only a few groups scattered around. One group was clustered around his, Polis' and Teli's kavats, who had at some point made themselves at home on one of the unoccupied chairs. The creatures were tangled together, and Matariel's kavat, Abby, lifted his head upon Matariel's approach. A quick hand sign and Abby extricated himself, to the hushed gasps of the group, and padded lightly over. The tenno ran his hand gently over the kavat's long copper ears, spotted Rhodes among the crowd, and decided to start a conversation. Another signal, and Abby started being as distracting as possible by mock fighting with Koman, Polis' kavat.

Stepping out of his warframe, Matariel addressed the armor pilot. "So. What does the government think of us?"

Rhodey's face portrayed confusion. "I thought you would know. They've been very public about the whole thing."

"Come on. I know you humans well enough to know your governments never give the full picture when it comes to enhanced beings."

The other quickly glanced around and brought his voice down low. "They're incredibly irritated. Apparently all of their intel on warframes keeps leaking onto the internet by some hacker called Uscias. Including stuff they'd never seen before, presumably from other countries. What's worse is that they can't say anything about it for fear of admitting to a weakness in the system."

"So we are getting all of it then?"

"You-" Rhodey nearly lost control of his voice in surprise and had to pause to lower it again. "This is your doing? That data is on off-network sites, some of them underground in bunkers. You're telling you're _breaking into_ top security facilities and stealing intel? I'd say it's impossible, but obviously not for you."

"Correct. I will not have any humans keeping secrets from one another about us. That would generate fear and mistrust, as well as paranoia that we may be working for another country over your own. To maintain neutrality you all will have access to the same information."

"It's still generating ill will."

"It's generating equal ill will."

Rhodey gave Matariel an appraising look. The tenno shrugged. "We had to deal with a multitude of opposing factions with wildly different outlooks on how we were supposed to conduct ourselves. Earth is quite tame by comparison."

"Yeah well you're on very thin ice. I would watch my step if I were you."

"The moment the governments of the world open up about it is the moment the problem goes away. Make sure to tell them that."

The officer took a moment to think over what the tenno had said. "... I don't like it, but I realize why you're doing it. Just be careful, alright?"

* * *

An hour later, all the guests were gone and the team was sitting around a single table, drinks in hand.

"Come on man. It's gotta be a trick." Clint said.

"I agree, I think the literal translation is: Whomever holds Thor's fingerprints?" Stark snarked from the bar, where he was refilling a glass of something.

"You're free to try." The god said, gesturing to where Mjolnir sat on the table.

A chorus of hoots sounded as the sharp shooter stepped up. As he puffed himself up, Matariel, back out of his warframe, pulled out a scanner and focused on the weapon. He adjusted his sitting position on the back of the couch next to Thor and leaned forward.

Clint stepped forward, giving the hammer a suspicious glare. Without warning he lashed out and pulled with all his might. Nothing happened. After a few seconds of trying, he gasped and let go. Covering how winded he was with a laugh, he said. "I still don't know how you do it."

"Don't worry Barton it's been a long week we don't blame you if you can't get it up."

"Please, Stark. By all means."

More hooting. "So if I lift this thing I rule Asgard?" Tony asked. Thor nodded and Tony wrapped the strap around his wrist and took firm hold of the handle. "I will be reinstituting prima nocta." He stated before confidently failing to lift the hammer. "... No one touch this thing. I'll be right back." He left at a brisk pace.

Matariel watched him leave. Leaned down and asked Thor. "Density manipulation?"

The god shook his head and whispered back. "It uses magic to determine worthiness and manipulates inertia accordingly." He glanced away as Tony reentered the room. "But uh, don't tell Stark that yeah?"

"Oh of course not, this is too much fun." Tony had grabbed the hammer again with one of his suit's gauntlets and started pulling. Matariel laughed out loud. "Hey genius, how is only using an arm going to provide any more lift that you by yourself?"

Tony glared at the tenno and a pair of mini repulsors fired up to provide extra lift. No effect.

Rhodey stepped up with a war machine arm to help. No effect.

Bruce also failed to lift the weapon, but with much more yelling.

Then Steve got up. Matariel caught a vague look of unease crossing Thor's face. When the super soldier was unable to lift it, the god relaxed again. Matariel kicked him in the side to let him know that the slight shift in Mjolnir's position hadn't been missed.

Banner looked over at Natasha. "Widow?"

"Oh no no no. That's not a question I need answered." She said, taking a sip of her drink after.

"All deference to the man who wouldn't be king, but it's rigged." Tony said from his seat.

"You bet your ass."

"Steve." Hill spoke up. "He said a bad language word."

Steve sighed and looked to Stark. "Did you tell everyone about that?"

Ignoring him, Tony continued his rant. "I reiterate, it's rigged. Probably is fingerprint protected, along with some other Asgard tech we don't know about."

Polis, who had left at some point, came back in and sat down on the couch with a slice of pizza. "What's rigged?" He asked, setting his plate down on the table. Looking around, he froze at all their shocked faces. "What?" He asked again. Following their gazes to the hammer on the table, for there, in a distinctly different place than had Thor set it down, sat the immovable Mjolnir.

A beat of silence, and Matariel fell backwards off the couch laughing. Polis, surmising what had occured, started laughing as well.

Thor tried to form words, but couldn't, neither could anyone else, though not for lack of trying.

Recovering from his fall, Matariel stood up. "I was wondering when that loophole would show up." He said between bouts of giggles. "Only those who are worthy can wield the hammer. Polis wasn't wielding it. He was making room for his plate."

Thor, finally getting his words back, said. "It's not supposed to work like that."

"Doesn't matter, when the void gets involved semantics are as binding as the laws of physics."

Thor possessively picked up his hammer. "You did not lift it though, so you aren't worthy."

Slick metal scraped across the floor. Accompanied by the screech of microphone feedback. Slowly, a figure lurched into view.

"Worthy… worthy?… No… how could you be worthy?"

* * *

AN: *Takes deep breath* ...SO.

On the table: The Sacrifice, Umbra, and the Tennocon reveals. Stop reading now if you haven't played/know what they are. Go find out, then come back.

The Sacrifice:

We have confirmed that Warframes are made of people infected with specially crafted strains of infestation. In my mind the tenno would hide this information to the best of their ability. Space mom has abandoned us. I have been shying away from including her at all since the prologue came out, and I'm of the mind that only a few of the present tenno have been awake long enough to remember her leaving. Sandon, Theris and Siren have not been awake long enough, and were awakened by their fellow clanmates instead.

Umbra:

I'm going to run with the idea (until proven otherwise in game) that there are many different Umbra warframes, and that they were all set loose during the Lua fiasco. For a while they were running around, and eventually they were all tamed. Since there are a limited number, it was the first and most powerful tenno that were able to do it. So, in this case, Polis has Rhino Umbra, Rain has Nezha Umbra, and Matariel has a Limbo Umbra.

Tennocon Reveals:

I'm freezing the tenno timeline somewhere around after the sacrifice quest. The MCU has been confirmed as going cosmic post Avengers 4, and at that point I'm going to do a thing that restarts the Tennoverse (Is that what I should call it?) and it will happen after the Avengers 4 arc as well. The Railjack update has already made an appearance, I think it should be obvious as to where, and the obvious (and accidental) plot hole I've made will be addressed as well. As for the Venus bit, I'm going to go with the tenno had heard about a supposed restart to the Venus terraforming program, but it hadn't happened yet as of their universe hop.

All that said, this is subject to change, should more information come to light.

Don't forget to review and let me know if there are any plot beats I've missed. Sorry again for the long upload delay. I appreciate any measure of patience you still have left. The next one will come Soon TM.  
(Also I know it's technically Tuesday, but it's 2 am here, sue me.)

EDIT: I MIXED UP ACTOR AND CHARACTER I'M SO ASHAMED OF MYSELF. I used Amazon Prime Video to watch these movies and I got the two mixed. Oops. Thank you, person who let me know.


	20. DRAMATIC

AN: This happened a lot faster than last time. I might've caught stride this round.

Hopefully it continues.

* * *

"You're all killers."

The group turn to see who, or what, had spoken. A partially disassembled legionnaire, dripping wires and lubricant, lurched into view. Only one arm was intact, and it's faceplate was corroded.

"Who are you?" Steve stood, already on alert.

"I was asleep. Or… I was a-dream? There was this terrible noise, and I was tangled in-" The robot looked down at itself. "strings. Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?"

"Wouldn't have been my first call. But down in the real world we have to make ugly choices."

"Who sent you?" Thor brandished his hammer.

An audio clip of Stark played over the loudspeakers. " **I see a suit of armor around the world.** "

Bruce's surprised face matched Tony's "Ultron."

"In the flesh. Or no, not yet. Not this… chrysalis. But I'm ready. I'm on mission."

Into the silence, Natasha asked. "What mission?"

"Peace in our time." The wall behind Ultron erupted into more legionnaires. The first flew directly at Steve, who kicked up the table try and stop it. The robot never hit it though. The table fell to the floor and broke, revealing the legionnaire sprouting the biggest hammer Steve had ever seen sprouting from it's back. Polis, who was attached to the other end, pulled the hammer out with a crack, leaving glass shards behind. The glass rapidly grew back into shape, and the Gara wearer slipped it back into the void and pulled out a similarly themed rifle and began firing on another of the robots, bass thumping pounding out a steady rhythm punctuated by the tinkling of glass shards. Steve, in full Captain America mode, rushed to put himself between the fighting and Helen, who was cowering between a chair and the outer windows.

Light pulsed across the surface of the Gara, and all the windows imploded, sending a storm of deadly glass twisting through the room. Matariel, for his part, had already brought down two of the attackers and thrown a prism, which bounced through the room, sending deadly laserbeams bouncing off the now airborne glass and through any legionnaire that got in their way.

The strange metallic voice continued to speak. "I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to project the world but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved if it's not allowed to… evolve?" Ultron reached down and picked up a legionnaire by its head. "These puppets?" There was a _clank_ when it hit the floor again. "There's only one path to peace: The Avenger's extinction."

Before he could continue Mjolnir hit him in the chest and into the back wall. As the lights faded from its eyes, Polis gingerly walked over to the downed robot. He kicked it lightly. "Well that was dramatic." He said derisively.

"It's almost as if-" Matariel began before cutting himself off. Both he and Polis' gazes snapped to the same direction; vaguely eastward. After a second of silence, broken only by Tony sitting down heavily on the stairs, Matariel spoke. "The Cephalons have gone dark. Landing craft navigation is down. I can only surmise the wireless component to Ultron's consciousness is now trying to gain access to the Cephalon Weave. If he gets in there will be no way to stop him."

"He's giving the cephalons pause?!" Banner asked incredulously.

"They've gone dark in order to fight him off." Polis said. "Our ship cephalon's sole purpose in life is to protect us and the ship. For Simaris, it's the safety and expansion of the Sanctuary. Communication is almost essential for those goals. Being forced to give that up… it's bad. Very bad."

"What are everyone's positions?" Steve asked.

"Siren, Gemma, and Theris nearly crashed down over Morocco, Teli and Sandon are off grid, and Rain is… on the southern beaches of Lake Ontario for some reason. Not even going to question that." The tenno sighed exasperatedly and started to march off.

"Where are you going?" Tony asked, seeing as the tenno had begun to move toward the lab.

"To see how hard you managed to screw this up." The tenno responded, already at the top of the stairs and moving toward the lab's door. Tony heaved himself up as quickly as he could and followed, along with everyone else present.

Bruce immediately made a beeline for a console and began running through files as fast as he could. "Ultron cleared out." He said. "He used the internet as an escape hatch."

Natasha, coming up beside the scientist, confirmed it. "He's gone through everything, probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

Clint froze and Matariel threw a pointed look at Rhodes.

"He's in your files, he's in the internet." The war machine pilot ignored the tenno's gaze. "What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"

"Nuclear codes." Hill supplied.

"Nuclear codes." Rhodey confirmed. "We need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

Natasha looked up from the screen she was reading. "Nukes? Ultron said he wanted us dead. Not-"

Steve interrupted. "He didn't say dead. He said extinct."

"He also said he killed somebody." Clint said.

Hill winced as she got a piece of glass out of her foot. "There wasn't anyone else in the building."

"Yes there was." Tony said as he stepped into the center of the room. "JARVIS." He flicked his wrist and a hologram of a shattered clockwork construct flickered into being.

Polis flinched. Matariel stepped up to get a better look. "If Ultron can do this to one of yours, it makes sense that it could cause issues for a cephalon. Poor creature."

"It makes sense, he was the first line of defense. He would have shut Ultron down."

"No no. You don't understand AI, Captain. JARVIS would have shut Ultron down the _moment_ anything went wrong. Ultron was able to conceal signs of hostility until he was powerful enough to prevent it." Matariel paced across the room like a shark in a tank. He continued. "At the same time, he destroyed JARVIS, not assimilate him. This is not the work of a construct. Stark. _What did you do?_ "

Before the billionaire could react Thor stormed into the room and had Tony by the throat.

Tony, feet dangling several inches off the ground, tried to speak. "Come on buddy, use your words."

"I have more than enough words to describe you Stark. None of them are-"

"Thor!" Steve said sharply. "Report on what you found."

The god dropped Tony with a huff. "There was no sign of where the scepter or the Conculyst went. Obviously it was taken before Ultron engaged us. This was well thought out."

"AI think at speeds we could scarcely comprehend. Of course he would realize he couldn't steal the scepter when we could see it." Matariel said.

Thor nodded and continued. "Now we have to retrieve the scepter again."

With a dismissive wave, Polis started pacing. "That's a given. Ultron himself is the bigger threat, and what he'll do with the drone worries me."

Turning from where she was examining the top half of a bisected legionnaire, Helen gave Tony a confused look. "I don't understand." She said. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Polis froze mid-step. "You didn't. Did you?"

In the silence that followed, a small laugh could be heard.

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked. Not an ounce of mirth in his voice.

"I'm sorry." Tony continued laughing. "It's- It's just a hoot that you don't get why we need this."

"Tony maybe this might not be the time…" Bruce interrupted.

"Really? That's it? You just roll over every time somebody snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot."

"We didn't! Were we close? We weren't even close!"

"Well you did something right. And you did it right here." Steve spoke. "The Avengers were supposed to be different from SHIELD."

Tony pointed toward the ceiling. "Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?"

"No. It's never come up." Rhodey inserted at the same time Matariel said. " _We_ carried a nuke through a wormhole."

Tony continued unhindered, however. "A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We survived thanks to my ingenuity and an octet of alien warriors powerful enough to bring down countries overnight. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there? That's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Our supreme combat ability and an exceptional arsenal of exo-universal weaponry."

Tony threw Polis a glare. "We'll lose."

The tenno snorted. "Speak for yourself."

Steve decided to step back in. "We'll beat it _together._ Ultron's calling us out, and I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller. Tenno, what can you or your cephalons tell us?"

Matariel feigned knocking on his head. "The cephalons have gone silent, remember? We have no planetary scanning ability and are about as mobile as you are. All I know is if Ultron makes it into the Weave, he'll be unkillable. Not to mention start wreaking havoc in our home universe."

The warframe then turned on the genius, voice steadily rising. "You built a program around an alien artifact powerful enough to supplant Sentient programing and give it the prerogative to protect the world? That is foolish beyond comprehension. You explicitly saw what happened to the orokin when they _accidentally_ created artificial intelligence!" Tony tried to interrupt but Matariel steamrolled over him. "You toyed with something you didn't fully understand and tried to bend it to your will. Ultron is sentient. You intentionally designed him so that you have no control over how he thinks or acts. You've essentially handed control over the entire world's information control to a being that has every intention of destroying everything you stand for!" The air around the warframe was now vibrating with each syllable. "And to top it all off, you did it behind our backs! On a good day in our universe I'd have bled you out onto the floor by now."

Steve stepped forward and placed a restraining hand on the Mirage's chest. "For now we need to make those calls and warn whoever we can. We need to figure out what he's after and get the jump on him."

"I'll get on it." Maria said. She nodded toward Rhodey and they left together. Matariel took a moment to compose himself.

"Star-child. I am able to spare only a brief moment. We are bringing the orbiters down so you have access to your arsenals. I'm sending you the coordinates now." Coordinates appeared on Matariel's UI and the tenno let out a small sigh. To those who remained present, he said. "Our orbiters are coming down outside the city so we can access our arsenals. Thor. Can you take us there?"

"Of course." He said tersely, still giving Tony the stink eye. The three set off as well, leaving Stark, Natasha, Clint, Steve and Helen left. Without a word Steve walked out, soon the assassins followed suit, while Helen, after realizing she was alone with Tony, started after Maria and Rhodey.

* * *

"So what was the excuse you told your family?" Rain's voice cut through the blasting wind with unnatural clarity, almost straight into Peter's ears.

"I, uh, told them I was hanging out at a friend's place!" Spiderman struggled to make himself heard through both his mask and the air between them.

"Do you have sleepovers often?"

"...No." Peter sighed from where he hung by his arms from Rain's grip. Seeking to change the subject, he yelled up at the warframe carrying him. "Is it ok to leave the archwing on the beach there?"

Rain spared a glance down at the boy he was carrying. The face of the grey and lavender Zephyr Prime gave nothing away. "It has automated defense systems and will fly back to the orbiter once the issue passes. No one will be able to get to it." Awkward silence resumed as Rain flew them both back to New York City, thankfully at a subsonic speed.

Peter had been in the middle of giving Icarus a run for his money when the archwing systems had been forced into automatic descent, dropping him in the process. A tenno would have been able to land safely, especially with the lake below them. Spiderman… not so much. Rain's adrenaline spiked and he nearly broke the young hero's ribs when he tackled him mid-air. As it stood, there would be a nasty bruise for the next day or so. Right now though, the biting wind eclipsed the ache of his torso as they sped over the countryside.

"Did you give her a specific time you would be back?" Rain asked as he increased his speed again.

"Not specifically, but I'm supposed to be back _before_ tomorrow!"

"Well then we've got about twenty minutes to make it all the way across the state."

"How fast are we going?"

"Call it... two hundred miles per hour?"

"WHAT?!"

"Give or take. Your human measurements are silly."

"It doesn't feel that fast!" It honestly didn't, but Peter wasn't that experienced with high winds.

"I made a pocket of air around us. Think warp bubble but made of air."

Peter took this in. Yet another display of unbelievable power on the part of the warframes. "How fast can a warframe go?" He asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"The record holder for fastest absolute speed sits at about seven hundred mek-sesear... err, the speed of sound in water. But that was under extenuating circumstances."

"Why do you even have archwings then?"

"Have you _tried_ breaking the sound barrier? It takes a lot of effort, plus we can't be Zephyr all the time. The Archwings can technically go faster, but not in atmosphere. Either way, we're going to have to change positions." With about the same apparent effort as hefting a small dog, Rain lifted Spiderman up. "Awkward koala hug me, must go faster."

He did. Rain was right. It was awkward. But Peter comforted himself with the fact that it wasn't as awkward as the talk with Aunt May would have been if he was late.

* * *

After dropping Spiderman off at Kissena Park Golf Course (per his directions) Rain made a beeline for where his orbiter was landed. Matariel filled him in on what had happened and after changing back to his preferred Nezha and grabbing his Zenith rifle and classic Euphona/ Orvius duo, he dropped out of the orbiter onto the landing platform. When he stepped into the lab, he stopped in his tracks. Tony was still there, mulling over something.

The man looked at the tenno. "What?"

"Where is everyone else?"

"We've made what calls we can. Most of our communication is still intact, but we've gotta watch what we say, for obvious reasons. They're all doing their best to rest now." He stopped as a call came through to the nearest phone. Tony picked it up. "Yes?...Mhmm… Yeah. Alright. Send them to Ms. Hill, she'll be better at keeping track of all this." He hung up, and at Rain's questioning tilt of the head, said. "We've started getting reports. Looks like Ultron is on the move."

"Well, thanks to you, we can't get anywhere fast enough to stop him. I'm going to spend the next few hours trying not to throw you out a window. Can't fix anything if you're dead." Rain said it like he was talking about the weather. He walked back out of the lab and into the party room. Stepping so lightly he didn't break any of the glass he was standing on, he moved over to the blown out windows. With a glance eastward, he found a broom behind the bar and began to clean, waiting for the sun to rise.

* * *

An hour before sunrise Matariel found Rain still sweeping, totally in zen space and relatively unaware of his surroundings. Making a snap decision, Matariel shifted his Limbo Prime into the Rift, eliminating his presence, and quickly made his way toward his unsuspecting clanmate. Moving with exaggerated care, in seconds he was mere feet away, gathering himself, he mimed sucking in a huge breath…

And sat silently down on the couch. Adopting a comical relaxed pose and waited for Rain to notice his presence. After five minutes of failure, Matariel took his venari fedora off and started floating it over Rain's head. When that failed, he brought the hat back to his head. Instead of giving up, though, he started moving debris around when Rain wasn't directly looking at it.

It didn't take long after that. A chair suddenly righting itself between one glance and the next is hard to ignore after all. Rounding on the clan leader, Rain picked up a palm sized piece of table and threw it at him. Matariel, for his part, batted it out of the air and into a trash can over twenty feet away.

"Show off."

"Says the guy who casually broke the sound barrier for the length of an entire state. Why were you up there anyway?"

"Let Spiderman play with an Archwing." At Matariel's tensely questioning body language, Rain threw up his hands. "It was my Amesha! You don't get to yell at me for that."

Matariel relaxed. "No, I don't. Has he-"

"No he hasn't told me his identity. I told him I'd show him my face when he showed me his. You showed him yours?"

"No."

"Good, I was thinking-"

"Oh no." Matariel facepalmed.

"- that maybe we make a game out of it."

"...My reaction stands."

"Ok ok. Hear me out. You know who he is, right? What if I enrolled at the same school him, and we play at trying to find out each other's identities?"

"You're forgetting the part where this competition aligns with the new student showing up. Where did you get the idea that that sort of thing would go unnoticed?"

"...The Internet?"

"Specifically?"

"...Fanfiction. Hey now, they can be good!"

"They usually end in romance."

"No. They usually end in close friendship and/or hero partnership until the status quo needs to be returned to normal. What have you been reading?"

"He's going to see right through it." Matariel crossed his arms.

"And I'll hear right through it the moment I hear his voice or learn where he lives. What's your point? Plus I want to see what school is like."

"You could do an online college, void knows we're smart enough for it."

"Yeah but there's no experience there. I could learn the information any time I want. I want the social aspect."

"You're insufferable."

"I'm enthusiastic."

"You mispronounced overeager."

"You're no fun." Rain pouted.

"I derive joy from things making sense. This does not."

Rain blew a raspberry and continued sweeping. They stayed in silence together after that.

Eventually their peace was interrupted by the elevator door opening. Matariel Immediately got to his feet and walked over the much cleaner floor to where Steve and Maria were talking to each other.

As he approached them he caught wind of what Maria was saying. "-Robotics labs, weapons facilities, jet propulsion labs. Reports all consist of a metal man, or men, coming in and emptying the place."

"Fatalities?" Steve asked. By this point Matariel had joined them and Maria adjusted her position to address them both.

"Only when engaged. Most of them are left in a fugue state going on about old memories, worst fears, and something too fast to see."

"Sounds familiar." Matariel crossed one arm over his chest while the other stroked his pointed chin.

"The Maximoffs." Supplied the soldier. "It does make sense he'd go to them, they have someone in common."

"Not anymore." Maria handed Steve a datapad and Matariel looked over Steve's shoulder to get a look. It was Strucker, laid out on his bed. Behind him: a wall covering in red stain spelling out the word 'Peace'.

"Aww he beat me too it." Matariel said more to himself than to anyone present. At Steve's glare he raised his hands in surrender. Steve then lifted his gaze to Clint, who was resting one arm on the balcony and talking into his phone, too quiet to hear. "Barton." Steve called out to get his attention. "We might have something. Who was that?"

"Girlfriend."

Steve walked off, expecting them to follow, but Matariel caught Clint in a staring contest. After a long moment, making sure that the message had gotten across, Matariel tossed his head in a dismissive gesture and followed after Steve. The archer close behind. They entered the room just as Natasha was giving her two cents on the matter.

"This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve suggested.

Natasha started typing on her console. "I'll bet he- yeah. Everything we had on him is gone."

"Not everything." Tony interjected. He left the room and minutes later he re-entered with Rain in tow and a large assortment of boxes.

"Matariel. You're going to love this." Rain told his clan master, before setting one of the boxes down on the table and opening it. Inside were hundreds of folders of varying labels and thicknesses. Eagerly Matariel began rifling through the box, while Rain left to go get more. At Bruce's questioning gaze, Matariel paused his musings for a second to explain.

"I used to collect hard books back in our universe. Think... The same way you view stone age pottery. I'm a bit of an enthusiast. We're looking for Strucker, yes? Known associates, et cetera?"

Tony nodded and Matariel resumed rifling through the box. He had nearly finished by the time Rain returned, this time with Polis, who was carrying four boxes on his Mag's slim shoulders. The other Avengers took a box each, and all three tenno disappeared to retrieve more boxes this time, along with Steve.

After a minute Bruce interrupted the sounds of shuffling papers with the declaration: "These people are all horrible." He threw aside the folder he was holding, which Matariel deftly caught and put it back on the table with a subdued reverence. Tony, who had been distracted by the odd behavior, glanced down at a page that had gotten loose.

"Ah, wait, I know that guy. He operates off the African coast, black market arms." He caught Steve's look. "There are conventions, ok? You meet people. I didn't sell him anything." Tony said defensively. "He was talking about finding something new, a game changer, he called it. It was all very Ahab."

"Was he talking about us?" Polis asked from the floor where he was surrounded by a pile of papers.

"No this was before you." Tony passed the folder to Thor. "You know if he got hands on your tech right?"

"True." Rain.

"Thor squinted at the page. "This?" He asked, pointing to a marking on the side of the man's neck.

"Those are tattoos. I don't think he had it then."

"No these are tattoos. This is a brand." Bruce, who had been looking over the god's shoulder immediately sat down at the nearest computer and ran a program of some sort.

"Ah." He said after a minute. "It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief'. In a _much_ less friendly way."

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

"Wakanada. Wa-Wah- Wakanda."

Steve's eyebrows shot up as he made eye contact with Tony. The genius rubbed a hand down his face. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of its trade goods…"

"I thought your father said he got the last of it." Steve told him.

"I don't follow. Bruce interjected. "What comes out of Wakanda?"

Tony turned to look at where Cap's shield rested against a nearby wall. "The strongest metal on Earth."

* * *

Gemma and the other two tenno were half way across the Strait of Gibraltar heading North toward a UN facility when she received a void channel call from Polis.

"We got something interesting. Apparently our resident 'genius' has been aware of the hole in the world for some time."

"See?" Theris spoke up. "I told you we should have just gone through their files. They knew about Wakanda the whole time."

"And they didn't bother to tell us." Gemma responded. "Mission parameters remain unchanged. We have only received a more detailed outline of their dealings with the outside world. As soon as we get to the human's base we'll reevaluate and plan again." She looked back to where their landing craft were being pulled along like low flying kites behind the barges. "Keep us updated." She told Polis, before closing the channel.

Their orbiters hadn't come down like they had for the others, so Gemma was having to plan with what she had.

Gemma did not like planning with what she had.

She sighed and turned to the human that had come to represent the UN in their travels. A brief switch in her translator orb and she was able to speak to him.

"How long until we arrive?"

"Two hours at most, we're taking you to a secret facility capable of housing your ships until the problem is solved. Speaking of, what is wrong with them?"

"Tony Stark made a mistake, now we're all going to have to pay for it." Gemma told him. His face morphed into one of worry, but he didn't say anything else, only retreated to speak with one of his aides.

* * *

AN: Well. That happened. I'm really quite happy with where the chapter and movie worked out to form a nice chapter ending here. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Don't judge me.

I don't ever know what to say here, I think of any number of things throughout the time it takes to write these but I never remember what I wanted to say when the time actually comes.

Bugger.

Anyway, do the review thing, don't forget to follow if you like the story, and thanks a million for reading!


	21. An Omlette

AN: Another Chapter! Still alive guys don't worry. Slowing down because school though.

* * *

"Is there anywhere like this on your Earth?" Clint leaned against the straps toward Polis as they banked over the ships stranded on the salvage yard.

The tenno took a second to look out the window. "Not that I know of. I can count on one hand the number of places with a permanent population on the planet itself. Everywhere else I've visited was covered in trees the size of skyscrapers. No artificial structures could stay recognizable for more than a year unless actively maintained with biotoxins that would probably be considered outright inhumane anywhere on this Earth. Quite frankly it's unusual to even be able to see the horizon not blocked by trees or Sentient corpses."

"Your world sucks."

"Aye, but it is beautiful in it's own way." They landed just off a line of nearby trees. As they disembarked Clint paused, trying to picture what they would look like if they were as big as Polis said.

"What's up?" Natasha asked.

The archer shook his head. "Nothing, just trying to exercise my imagination."

"Well don't hurt yourself." She turned and started walking toward the boats. Barton rolled his eyes before following.

Before Polis could follow, however, Banner pulled him aside.

"Hey, I just wanted to ask, if it's not too much trouble, I-"

"Don't worry, Archimedean. We will do our best to make sure you do not need to get involved."

"Thanks."

"Hey, if anything it adds an extra bit of difficulty to our otherwise boring lives. Makes things interesting."

"I'll try to take that as a compliment." Polis laughed and slapped the scientist on the shoulder before sprinting off to catch up with everyone else who had already left.

They made it to the boat without any issue, there wasn't anyone on watch. Rain and Matariel wasted no time in scaling the smooth side of the ship. Polis, on the other hand, noticed that three of their party were noticeably incapable of doing so. They were looking for a way in on ground level and Polis shook his head at their lack of creativity.

"Hawkeye, Black Widow, grab onto the Captain, I can send you up by his shield."

"No thanks, I'm good." Clint said, firing a grappling arrow up between the boat's rails. He quickly scaled the wall. Steve jogged over and accepted the ride, linking one hand with Natasha and the other into his shield. Polis surged his warframe's systems and they both quickly passed Clint, who let out an exasperated sigh at Natasha's stuck out tongue. After checking to make sure they were up and secure, Polis launched up the metal plating after them, arriving the same time as Hawkeye. Together, the four ran as quietly as they could toward the door Tony and Thor had vanished through. Shortly they heard a familiar metallic voice bouncing off the walls.

"DON'T COMPARE ME TO STARK! It's- It's a _thing_ with me. Stark is… He's a sickness!"

Tony, always one for timing, chose that moment to intervene. "Aw Junior." He said. "You're going to break your old man's heart."

Ultron looked unimpressed. "If I have to."

Polis and Rain chose instead to not be immediately visible, and instead hide behind a collection of munitions. Peeking over, they saw that both of the Maximoff twins stood a little ways behind the towering Ultron robot.

Thor stepped forward. "Nobody has to break anything."

"Clearly you've never made an omelette."

"He beat me by one second." Tony said, glancing backwards. Thor gave him a confused look. Next to Rain, Polis mimed pinching his brow.

The Maximoff brother spoke then. "It's funny, it's what, comfortable?" He gestured to the various weapon systems scattered around them. "Like old times?"

"This was never my life." Tony said, sounding for all the world like he believed it.

Captain America also took a step forward. "You two can still walk away from this. I've seen your file, what Strucker did was-"

He was loudly interrupted by Ultron gagging. "Captain America. God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but…"

Thor responded but neither tenno heard what it was, since Matariel opened up a channel to the two. "It's coming to a head, I'll be distracting, get to better positions." Without any pause the Limbo dropped down with a louder than normal clang. "Thor, he never said he believed in peace, only that he will bring it."

Ultron's face curled into an irritated expression, but he said nothing.

"And, unlike the good Captain here, I'm not going to pretend we don't need war, it's in the name after all." The tenno casually hefted his Arca Titron across his shoulders. "That said, there's only one species that's ever actually been able to make war against us, and humans," He gestured at the twins. "are not them."

"Oh I know." Ultron broke in. "But you won't get in my way. Not here."

"Yeah? What's the vibranium for?" Tony asked accusingly.

"I'm glad you asked that." Ultron said. "I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." Instantly the air between them warped with magnetic energy, but Iron Man stayed where he was. Ultron snarled down at Polis, whose hand was up in concentration. The Mag then brought down sections of the roof down on the robots that were pouring out from various hiding places. Tony charged Ultron who met him mid air and two wrestled off down the length of the boat.

Thor and the Captain engaged about three minions each, while Matariel phased and weaved in between four more, they went down in seconds.

Then the Maximoffs got involved.

The speedster whizzed around, getting punched in where he could. Steve charged Wanda, but she threw him back with a blast of energy.

Rain decided to take a queue and activated firewalker, flipping and skating around any henchmen who were taking aim at the Avengers. The fire from his feet stuck, creating an ever thickening maze, hampering the speed with which his enemies could move. After bringing down two or three, he caught sight of Black Widow in her own melee. He pulled out his Euphona and dropped her next two opponents before they could reach her, he then threw his Orvius, rebounding it through the throats of five henchmen and bots before catching it again and bringing it down through the head of another human.

Polis glanced up briefly and saw Tony follow Ultron through a hole in the ceiling. Quickly surveying what forces remained, he leapt from the floor, and, rebounding off the many jutting rails, made his way up and outside. Once there, a quick three-sixty revealed Iron man chasing Ultron down across the flat ground, away from the city. It also revealed a small group of bots flying in a different direction at high speed. They each appeared to be carrying small containers.

Without hesitation Polis took out his Rubico, kneeled, and took aim.

Bam. One of the robots fell out of the sky, the others around it tried to catch what it was carrying, but Polis shot them down too. A chunk of boat flew at the tenno out of nowhere but he dodged it easily. It was, however. Enough for the rest of the fleeing robots to cut their losses and try their hardest to get out of range, a few more fell, but they flew on regardless. When they finally left his field of view, Polis turned back to Stark's fight the big robot. Tony had it pinned to another ship, but appeared to be talking with it. That wouldn't do, so Polis put a high powered round through its head.

"Rule number one of a self-aware robot uprising, do not engage in witty banter with it. All it does is waste time." Polis said over an open channel.

"He could have revealed intel." Tony responded.

"He made it clear inside that he wasn't going to talk. Matariel only did it so we could get into better positions. Matariel, how are things going inside?"

"...aaaand _that's_ that's the last one. I'm all done in here, I'm going to- oh."

"...What's 'oh'?"

Clint answered before Matariel could. "The girl messed with everyone's heads, most of the team is out. I managed to stop her getting to me though."

"Well that's not good. What about Banner?" Rain asked.

Realization hit Polis like a truck, and through their void connection he could tell Matariel had the same idea he did. Polis swung his Rubico around toward the jet, but it was empty. "Banner is gone, if Wanda got into his head…"

Tony instantly blazed off in the direction of the city.

Matariel began snapping orders. "Hawkeye, you're going to have to handle cleanup, make sure to get the vibranium and the other avengers to safety." He switch to orokin to convey information more quickly. "We're gonna have to be smart about this. None of us are equipped to go toe-to-toe with the Hulk right now." He pause briefly in thought. "Priority to saving non-combatants. I'll do what I can. Rain, with me. Polis, see if you can slow him down with debris. Go." The tenno sped away toward the city as fast as they could manage.

"You know, in hindsight." Rain said as they sprinted. "I think a Volt, a Nyx, and an Atlas might have been the better choice of frames for this mission."

"Why Atlas?"

"Because punch. And because debris everywhere and the inability to be knocked over also helps."

"Point made. Stark, what's it look like up there?"

"Not good. I've called in Veronica." A huge armored contraption blazed by overhead.

Polis grunted in recognition. "Oh I saw those plans. Good idea." The tenno were in the city by now and could hear the big green monster thrashing around up ahead. They skidded to a stop just as thick metal poles fell out of the sky and impaled themselves evenly spaced surrounding the Hulk, before bending inward and enclosing him in a six sided box.

It looked at first like the hexagonal box would hold, faint pounding could be heard, but no visible damage was being done. People and the police started slowly creeping closer, but Matariel wasn't having it. He fired his Aklex prime into the air and made a shooing gesture at the police to get the civilians away from the action. Thankfully, they got the message, just in time for the ground to drop a couple feet from under them. The tenno recovered quickly, but many humans were laid out and struggling to get to their feet. Polis went to help them up, but Matariel and Rain stood with their gazes locked on the sinking box.

"Polis, get the cars out of the way. Some of them are still occupied so be careful."

"Aye." Polis said. He raised his arms, lines along his warframe glowing ice-white as he mimed a pushing motion and the vehicles began to slowly roll backwards. He kept pushing even when the ground dropped another foot and the metal box nearly vanished underground.

Behind his mask, Rain's eyes widened. "He's digging! Move!"

Matariel whipped around just as the ground underneath a car erupted into a snarling green monster. But instead of the massive fists coming down on the person inside, they passed right through. Polis, abandoning his task, instead took two unoccupied cars and slammed them together on the Hulk, throwing him back into the center of the nearby plaza.

"Stark, I'm sensing a massive design flaw in both that containment device and the length of time it takes to get that suit on!" Rain said over an open channel.

"Don't worry I'm-"

 _BOOM_. The ground when the Hulkbuster landed.

"Done changing." Tony said. He blasted the Hulkbuster's loudspeakers. "Alright everybody STAND DOWN." This, of course, only pissed the Hulk off more.

"Will you listen to me?"

Rain made exaggerated slicing motions across his neck.

"That little witch is messing with your mind. You're stronger than her."

Polis facepalmed.

"You're smarter than her. You're Bruce Banner."

Hulk screamed bloody murder.

"Right right don't mention puny Banner." Tony backpedalled verbally, then physically backpedalled from the car that got thrown at him. Hulk went to use the blind spot the vehicle made to get another punch in but he phased right through the armor suit. He screamed in frustration.

"Hey." Tony asked. "Can't you just do that to him permanently?"

Matariel twirled his hands. "Doing that requires serious calculation and concentration. The Hulk is too unpredictable to effectively keep in the rift. I will prevent damage where I can, but we're going to need to get him out of town asap."

"Alright, suppose this couldn't be _that_ easy." Tony threw himself at the raging Hulk and began to wrestle him across the plaza, bouncing off buildings and pulverizing concrete as they went. In between blows he told the tenno. "Focus on evacuation. I don't want any more-" Hulk laid Tony out with a huge steel bar he had gotten from somewhere. He impaled it in the Hulkbuster's shoulder, rendering the arm nearly useless. Tony responded by twisting the arm up and around and punting the Hulk through a storefront.

Arm almost completely torn off, Tony elected to simply eject it from it's socket and replace it with a new one from the the hovering armory overhead. This time with a jackhammer function. "Let this punch through." He told Matariel, who was keeping his distance so he could keep track of everything. The tenno made an affirmative noise. Tony fired his remaining arm's repulsor beam to keep the Hulk at bay while the new arm finished connecting and met his assailant's punch dead on, shattering every window within fifty feet.

Matariel shrugged off the sense of deja vu and pulled out his Titron, charged up from his fight with the Ultron minions. "Stark. Pull him over this way, we need to get him out of the city." The tenno began to run along the edge of the building. Tony, meanwhile, had locked the Hulk's arm inside the Hulkbuster's and was flying toward the tenno. Matariel banished all three of them into the rift and slammed his hammer down, using up a charge and sending him flying toward the struggling duo. He reached out and grasped the trailing edge of the Hulkbuster's foot and pulled himself upward, but before he could get enough leverage to use his hammer the Hulk threw a hard punch that sent all three of them flying through the nearest building. Being in the rift protected the structure from damage, but the next big twist threw them out and into an office building. The three were knocked separate from the force, Tony dislodging an occupied elevator and having to turn to catch it while the Hulk ended up on the other side of the courtyard below and Matariel bounced two stories up. Hulk recovered first and threw himself after the armor but Matariel dropped down from where he landed and met him mid air with another amplified hammer swing from the Titron. Tony swiftly followed by swinging the now unoccupied elevator into the monster and spinning into a brutal hook that reintroduced Hulk's face to the pavement.

Hulk simply spit out a tooth.

"...I'm sorry." Tony said weakly.

The Hulk winded up for another punch but was stopped by an Orvius tying his fist in place. Rain blew through the doors, feet ablaze, firing off his Euphona at the wall of muscle. Polis was right behind him, simultaneously holding any structural damage in place and crushing any debris he could around the Hulk to keep him immobilized.

"Polis." Rain said. "We need to get him back out in the open."

"On it." Polis responded. He released areas cleared of people and began collecting metal underneath the Hulk, who was struggling against the Orvius. He finally broke free, but the Orvius released a blast of ice in the process and the resulting flailing gave Polis enough time to fling the debris into the air, taking the Hulk with it out and over the edge, where Tony air tackled him and sent them both out over the street again.

"This is ridiculous. Nothing short of dropping a building on this guy is going to slow him down."

"Great idea." Tony said. "Uh, how quickly can we buy this building?"

"Son of a- Polis! Prepare to catch!"

Polis blitzed across the two blocks Tony and the Hulk had flown over and prepared to intercept any falling debris. "I'm not going to be able to catch all of it!"

"I'll throw people in the rift! Just focus on the big stuff!" Matariel said from right behind him. He banished them both and they used the extra burst of energy to speed their way across the remaining distance, just as Tony dropped the Hulk high above them. Matariel began casting indiscriminately in an attempt to get as many as possible. Polis' Mag glowed like an overtaxed lightbulb as he tried to grasp as much of the building as he could.

Then Tony slammed down.

He had fired rockets just before he dove to guarantee as much of the structure came down as possible. Even as a smoke cloud replaced where the construction site had stood Matariel was still banishing, Polis managing to redirect most of the metal down and toward the center of the site.

Then the dust cloud hit them.

Despite Polis' efforts there was still tons of non-metal in the building. Even with all their efforts, there were still casualties. Rain joined them again, he had been able to cast warding haloes on a few, but there were just too many people nearby. The three surveyed the destruction as the Hulkbuster armor made its way into view, carrying an unconscious Bruce.

* * *

They made their way to the edge of the city where Clint had parked the jet. Polis stayed back to help with rescue and cleanup.

Rain came to a stop at the foot of the ramp. "Hey Stark?" He asked. "How fast can you get a round trip from here to New York?"

"It might take a few hours, even with our best jets."

"Worth it. Get me a ride. I'm going to switch to Trinity and help the city recover."

"I'll do what I can." Tony exitted the armor after making sure Clint had a secure grip on Bruce and helped get him on board. Matariel turned and tipped his Limbo's fedora to his clanmate before disappearing inside as well.

Rain watched the jet take off, easily bracing himself against the backdraft. Once it was out of sight he turned and ran back into town, stopping to make sure anyone he came across was ok before moving on. Once he reached the site of the collapse he met up with Polis, who was carefully moving large hunks of twisted metal out of the way so rescuers could get to a family inside. They had gotten trapped against a neighboring building and seeing the parents huddled over their kid caused a wave of sadness to briefly rear its head before Rain squashed it down.

He activated his divine spears, which impaled themselves from the ground and into the floating debris. "I got this Polis." He said through their void connection. "Go."

Polis saluted him and went off to coordinate with another rescue group. Rain then bent down and crept under the suspended concrete to get to the humans underneath. They initially panicked at the sight of him, and since he couldn't talk with them directly he simply made a placating gesture and offered his hand. When they didn't take it he sighed and sparked his blazing chakram off the ground, he approached them and used the energy from the halo to begin to heal their wounds. It wouldn't hold, but it would last them until they got to an aid center. The family realized they had been healed and accepted his hand when he offered it again, leading them around the spears supporting the ceiling and out into open air. Once safely in the hands of other humans, Rain let the spears go slowly, lowering the rubble back to its resting position.

His efforts went on in a similar vein for another half hour before Polis contacted him, saying that the transport Stark had promised had arrived.

"Wow. That was fast."

"Stark must have called for them the moment we realized Banner had gone berserk."

Rain shrugged. Once the Stark Relief Foundation had unloaded all its things, Rain loaded himself back on the jet, ready for takeoff. The pilot, obviously informed beforehand, didn't bat an eye when Rain sat down cross-legged and began to meditate, waiting for their arrival back at the tower.

* * *

"We have touchdown. It will take us about three hours to ready up for the next trip but there's another jet taking off in about half an hour. Will you be transfering over or staying with us?"

"I'll transfer over. Thank you." Rain told the pilot. As he stepped down the ramp he made note of a blip on his minimap.

Normal humans aren't blips on his minimap.

Rain snorted in his pod and walked into the warehouse like he hadn't noticed anything. Quickly, he changed into his Trinity, and, after a moment of consideration, pulling his Panthera out of storage along with his Synoid Gammacor. He kept the Orvius on the off chance he'd have to lift anyone out of a bad spot again. With that out of the way, he turned his attention back to the blip. He exited his warframe and began voidwalking. Invisibly slipping out of the warehouse, four void dashes and he was behind the blip. Silently Rain flipped open his amp and charged the prism. One. Two. Three breaths, and he spun around from behind his hiding tree.

Nothing on the ground. He glanced up.

And was met with a bright blue and red jacket and pants hiding in the space between two branches.

"You _really_ thought this was a good idea to follow me here?" Rain asked. "I could literally behead you right now and the law would be on my side. Not that it could really do anything if it wasn't."

Spiderman dramatically fell out of the tree and caught himself on a lower branch. "I was curious about a plane flying overhead that was triggering my spider sense. Didn't know it was you."

Rain frowned behind his mask. "Your ability to locate us unaided is troubling."

"Yeah well it doesn't work when you're out of your warframes. When you're out and about it's just like a normal person. Speaking of, how did you get behind me? Your warframe is still..." He pointed in the vague direction of the warehouse.

"I've mentioned the Zariman before?"

"Not really. I mean you've made allusions once or twice but you haven't really told me anything."

"In order to stay alive on the Zariman we learned to move unseen. Or die. Regardless, I'm going to erase your memories of this place when I get back. No chances."

"What? Nononono you can't do that I-"

"Nyx. No arguments." Rain's posture was serious now. "This place is secret for a reason and I won't let that change until it's time for-" He shut himself up.

Spiderman gave him a look. "Time for what?"

Rain mentally smacked himself. "Now I'm really going to have to erase your memories. Short version Sandon is able to see in four dimensions."

"If you're going to erase my memories does that mean you can tell me my future?"

"Nope. You're a smart kid and the mind wipe won't be permanent. You'll remember this eventually. No spoilers."

"...Fine."

"Am I going to have to hunt you down?"

"No. What's up with the news about the Hulk going crazy?."

"Thank you. Stark screwed up and the resulting mess decided it needed allies, one of which caused Banner to lose control."

"Oh."

"..."

"..."

"Shit I've got like five minutes before the plane takes off. I'm going back to help with healing. Later Spidey." Rain dashed off in the direction of the warehouse.

* * *

AN: DAMMIT I HAD A WHOLE THING WRITTEN OUT THEN I ACCIDENTALLY PRESSED THE BACK BUTTON ON MY MOUSE.

All of my rage. Here're the cliff notes:

I'm messing up the timeline on purpose in case it wasn't obvious. This is a fanfiction and I can do that. So I'm probably gonna do Black Panther and Homecoming simultaneously.

Civil War isn't on Netflix anymore AGGGHHHHHHH.

Ugh. I'm going to have to unfreeze the Tennoverse timeline. Not looking forward to dealing with that, you know, Revenant and all, BUT I do have a good idea for what to do with his...lore...

I feel like action scenes are a weak point in my writing, so let me know how I did.

I've got THINGS in mind for future arcs that I'm happy about.

Hope you liked the chapter! Do the review thing it helps me get better at this.


	22. So Stand, Fury Says As He Sits Down

AN: I have some apologies to not quite make.

I'm do not regret taking time away from this work to set things in order. In all honesty, I had to cut back in a lot of places to set things right. I did continue writing at a much slower pace though. And I'm not abandoning this until at least post Endgame. I'll have to see if Endgame is the place this should stop. I won't know until I see it.

I am steadily chewing through Sokovia's ride, but I'm going to wait until I'm done with the entire Age of Ultron arc before posting again. After that, there will probably be at least one whole original arch in between that and Civil War. Then I've got Homecoming and maybe Black Panther, then Infinity War and Endgame. Obviously I can't do Captain Marvel, so at least I don't have to worry about that, and there's no way to make a judgement on Far From Home yet. So Stay tuned for that I guess.

I think from now on I'm going to wait until I have whole arcs finished before posting them. I'm a bit worried about continuity because of how long writing these takes and forgetting things because of that. If I wait until the whole arc is done, then I can go over it and fine tune it so it's more cohesive and all that.

So yeah, I'm sad that the break had to happen, but I don't regret getting my shit together. It feels good to have my shit together.

* * *

Matariel took a moment to bask in the silence of the jet. Leaving his Limbo Prime behind, slumped in one of the chairs, he made his way toward the pilot seat. Hawkeye was flying the jet and he glanced back when Matariel leaned against the wall beside the seat. "It appears that you, Tony and I are the only ones currently functioning at the moment." The tenno said.

"Yeah, mind control is a bitch. I did it once before and it wasn't fun to get rid of." The assassin replied.

"That's right, you were in that cave with the other Loki."

Clint turned sharply in his seat. "Wait you were there?"

"Yeah, there were three strange energy signatures on Earth that we detected when we arrived. One was the Helicarrier, one was the arc reactor under Stark Tower, and the third was Loki's scepter. I was sent to investigate the latter. Rain called me away before I could do anything because he was dumb enough to not bring a _stealth frame_ on a _stealth mission_."

"Hey, how was I supposed to know the humans would be advanced enough to deal with Itzal tech?" Rain cut in over the radio. "The media is showing up. How should I proceed?"

Matariel leaned forward to look out the windshield. "If they chase you down give them the cold shoulder. Be very pointed about them getting in the way of any rescue attempts. We're not interested in public opinion, the people we rescue will handle that for us."

Clint gave brief side-eye. "Be careful. Just because you saved them doesn't they won't resent you for having had to save them in the first place."

"Opinions changes on a dime and words will be twisted to mean anything." Matariel responded. "The only indisputable facts are the actions we take. Our enemies created a problem and we intend to fix it."

At that moment a Maria Hill's voice drifted over from one of the other console screens farther back in the jet. "The news is loving you guys. No one else is. Despite how close you have been working together public opinion is stemming toward the Warframes working _alongside_ the Avengers instead of being part of them. Because of that public opinion of them is consistently higher than the Avengers. The fact that Rain and Polis went back to help with cleanup only furthers this."

Tony's voice drifted over to the two, much quieter. "We can't do anything right now. We took to big of a hit. We'll shake it off, but there's no way we could have stayed, especially with Banner."

"Yeah. Nobody's called for his arrest yet, but it feels like that's just because nobody wants to be the one to say it."

Matariel looked back at the other Avengers, each in various states of silence. Thor paced back and forth, Steve and Natasha were both staring pensively into space, and Bruce couldn't seem to get small enough where he sat on the floor under a blanket.

Maria continued as Matariel walked toward the down scientist. "For now I would stay in stealth mode and stay away from the tower."

"So, run and hide?" Tony snarked.

Maria shrugged. "Until we can find Ultron, I don't have much else to offer."

"Neither to we." Tony sighed. He moved toward the front and Matariel stepped carefully over to the super soldier. Adopting the body language of a child, Matariel took Steve's hand in his and gently pulled him over to the floor near where Bruce huddled. Too distraught to offer much resistance, the soldier followed without much resistance, though he did have a confused look on his face.

"Come. Sit." Matariel told him. When he was finally cross legged, Matariel stepped back and kneeled, facing towards the captain. "When you captured Strucker, and Wanda showed up for the first time? Do you remember that?"

Steve nodded.

"She looked into my head then." Matariel said. "More specifically, she looked into the mind of my warframe. Do you know what she saw?"

Steve shook his head.

"She saw pain, and beyond that pain, a rage beyond what any human is capable of feeling and retain coherence. The warframes were created to fight the Sentients, who at that point had laid waste to the outer colonies. The orokin learned, however, that the Infestation could be harnessed to channel void energies. Under the guidance of the orokin, skin blossomed into sword steel, organs linked with untold resilience, minds free of the natural infested madness. But the warframes turned on their masters and they could not figure out why. Until we came." Matariel extended his hand. "My point is, I can see your pain. I know what it is your are going through. We can control the warframes, not through force of will, or void magicks; we learned from the Zariman nightmare to see inside and ugly, broken thing, and take away its pain."

Steve looked at the hand extended toward him. After a moment, he reached out and pushed Matariel's hand down and away. "Thanks. I understand and appreciate the offer, but I need to work through this on my own."

The tenno nodded in response. "I am here if you need to talk, I understand what being on ice feels like. And everything I've read points towards talking things out helping more than not doing so. I will always listen, it's how I became clan master." With that Matariel stood up and retreated back into his Limbo just as the jet banked. Glancing to the cockpit, he saw Tony and Clint in hushed conversation. Deciding they knew where they were going, Matariel instead sat back in his seat and opened a void channel to all seven other tenno. "All report." He said simply.

Rain spoke first. "Giving the media the cold shoulder, but they are _actually_ getting in the way."

"I'm just keeping entirely clear." Polis spoke up. "They can't get to me if I'm always thirty plus feet off the ground."

Gemma spoke next. "Theris, Siren and I are currently in a UN Facility. We've organized reception of resources needed to repair some of the damage received upon crashing. We will move the landing craft ot a nearby storage facility and ourselves to the nearest intercontinental airport and standby there. Previous plan has been shelved for now."

After her was Sandon. "In orbit. Our… friend, has left it to the Avengers and us to solve his problem. I agree with his actions. I standby for drop insertion on your command."

"Abstain." Was all Teli said.

"Noted. No course correction needed. Continue as you were." The clan leader replied. He then sat back in his seat, swept his gaze around the jet one more time, before closing his eyes and waiting out the remaining flight.

* * *

The jet set down with an almost imperceptible bump and Hawkeye began leading everyone out, carrying Black Widow as he did. There were grass and trees everywhere, and in the distance a house could be seen.

Matariel let out an exaggerated yawn. He left his Limbo on the the jet, presuming that dealing with an actual person instead of a vicious war machine might be better for the group at this point in time. As they approached, the tenno made note of the surrounding land. It smelled of hand crafted peace. Hawkeye opened the front door to the house, leading everyone inside.

"Honey?" He said into the silence. "I'm home. I brought… company." The group followed him into the room, Natasha sat down heavily on a couch, covering her side with one hand. The rest stood, a bit dumbfounded, as a woman rounded the corner at the far end of the room. She seemed surprised, but not in the way Matariel thought a normal person would be given the situation. More like an unexpected visit from the neighbors than anything else. She and Clint embraced, sharing a kiss and a smile. Oh.

"This is an agent of some kind." Tony said to Thor. Steve gave him a look.

"Gentlemen, this is Laura." Clint introduced the woman.

She smiled a little awkwardly. "I know… most of your names." Her gaze lingered on Matariel, who tilted his head, before bowing deeply to her.

"Tenno Matariel at your service." He said. Before he could say more, however, footsteps came thundering down the nearby set of stairs. Matariel's instincts kicked in and he'd stepped halfway into the void before he registered that these newcomers were no threat. They greeted both Clint and Natasha warmly, calling him daddy and her aunty. The scene stirred up feelings of… _something_. Something Matariel quarantined for later. The eldest child, a boy, turned to meet Matariel's gaze. He returned it passively.

Steve took the lead in the conversation. "Sorry for barging in on you like this."

"Yeah we would have called ahead but we were busy having no idea you existed." Tony interrupted.

Clint hugged his wife again and explained. "Fury helped me set this up when I joined. Kept it off SHIELD's files. Figured it's a good place to lay low. I'd like to keep it that way."

Matariel sensed something coming from Thor's direction and smartly stepped out of the way of the Norse deity as he walked back out of the house, Steve following close behind. "Thor?" Steve asked, wanting an explanation.

"I saw something in that dream." Thor answered. "I need answers. I won't find them here." A swing of Mjolnir and he was gone.

Steve stood there for a moment, then turned to reenter the house. Something stopped him. Matariel noted his introspective expression, and watched as Steve instead left the porch, vanishing around the corner of the house.

"Y'all are free to shower, I'll get a change of clothes for those of you that'll fit. We all need to recover. So let's do that." Clint told the rest of the Avengers before he too vanished, this time up the stairs with his wife. Natasha was pulled off somewhere by the children, and Bruce sat down on a couch and put his head in his hands, still stuck in his own headspace. Matariel decided outside was the place to be, and stepped out onto the porch. Adopting a lotus position, he began to levitate a few feet off the ground, watching both Steve and Tony chopping logs. He didn't understand why, but he could see the catharsis in their body language and didn't question it, remembering his own many trips to Eris when he needed to burn off some steam after the Lotus betrayed the tenno. The rhythmic splitting of wood let him step down into meditation easily, and to occupy the remaining restless parts of his mind, Matariel created a small ball of void energy, weaving it between his fingers and around his arms. Here, on Earth, the activity was called contact juggling, but the orokin had no word for it.

Suddenly aware that eyes were on him, Matariel placed his feet back on the ground and began doing full body motions, eventually turning and spotting the little girl hiding behind the curtains of a nearby window. He smiled, invisible behind the mask. After another minute he finished the narta and let the void energy dissipate. Satisfied that he'd given the human girl enough entertainment, he stepped off the porch an out to join the two chopping wood. The tenno stopped when he heard the two were already in conversation.

"I don't trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old fashioned." Tony brought his axe down on a log, roughly splitting it down the middle.

Steve gave him an unreadable expression. "Let's just say you haven't seen it yet."

Stark changed tactics. "You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart right?"

Steve picked up another log and placed it on his chopping stump. "Well I'd guess you'd know. Whether you'd tell us is the question." The log split evenly in half with a _crack_.

"Banner and I were doing research-"

"That would affect the team."

"That would END the team!" Tony stepped forward, challenging the Captain. "Isn't that the mission? Isn't that the 'Why We Fight'?" Steve picked up another log as Tony continued his tirade. "So we can end the fight. So we can go home!"

Steve ripped his log in half, effectively shutting the genius up. "Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts innocent people die. Every time."

"Stark." Matariel spoke up. "You made a mistake. Regardless of your motives, you failed, and failed hard. Explanations come after."

Tony rounded on the tenno. "And you're any different? Your cephalons, your Lotus, they aren't any different. Automated beings meant to fulfill a purpose: Protection."

"Cephalons aren't Artificial Intelligence and the Lotus was never on our side to begin with. Natah abused the blind emotions of a broken man and hundreds of thousands of children to entrench herself in the perfect position to cut the head off her enemy." Matariel snapped. "She was given even greater authority than Ultron, and her betrayal was proportionally more spectacular."

Tony closed the distance between him and the tenno in three steps. "Alright. Well, we're on the subject of not keeping secrets, why don't _you_ tell _us_ why cephalons don't count? You adamantly stand by this assertion but never explain why! Tell us now."

"Stark!" Steve cautioned.

Matariel gave an exaggerated snort and squared his shoulders. Despite being half a head shorter than the billionaire, the two seemed to stand on equal footing. "I've been telling you this entire time. Cephalons are not _Artificial_ intelligence."

"That doesn't answer the question." Steve said.

Tony took a step back. "Yes it does." His expression morphed to one of almost-but-not-quite fear as he turned to look over his shoulder at the soldier. "Cephalons aren't _Artificial_ intelligence. They aren't artificial at all." Both turned back to the tenno with shocked expressions.

Matariel nodded. "The elixir of immortality the orokin created had more than one way to bestow its gift upon a recipient. Willing or not. Memories, emotions, all data to be edited or erased by someone else's hand. Cephalon Suda was a high ranking Archimedean, Samodeus was an crafter. Our ship Cephalons were mercenaries that each attempted to kill the orokin who hired them. All that's left now is the purpose given to them."

The two didn't have a response. And into the resulting silence, Mrs. Hawkeye spoke. "Mr. Stark? Sorry to interrupt, but Clint said you wouldn't mind. Our tractor doesn't seem to want to start at all and…"

"Yeah I'll give 'er a kick." Tony said. "Don't take from my pile."

Matariel raised an eyebrow at Tony's significantly smaller pile and pointedly picked one up, gingerly placing it on Steve's pile. Tony gave the tenno an unreadable expression before making his way over to the shed where the tractor was stored.

"Matariel." That was Teli's voice. "Follow."

Matariel's expression turned sour, but he followed anyway. By the time he entered the shed, Tony was already tinkering with the tractor.

"Do me a favor and try not to bring it to life." Fury appeared out of nowhere, a deadpan look on his face and hands in his shabby pockets.

"Why, Ms. Barton you little minx. I get it. Maria Hill called you right?" Tony said as he stepped away from the tractor. "Was she ever not working for you?"

Fury interrupted him before he could go further. "Artificial intelligence. You never even hesitated."

"Or thought to consult the people who had, you know, actually done it before." Matariel added.

"Not smart." Teli said, appearing in her Zephyr prime behind Fury. Her huras kubrow sniffed at the walls and padded out of sight.

"Look." Tony ran a hand over his face. "It's been a long day. Like, Eugene O'Neill long, so how about we skip to the part where you're useful."

Fury fixed Tony with a stare. "Look me in the eye and tell me you're going to shut him down."

"You're not the director of me."

"I'm not the director of anybody." Fury sat down on the hay. "I'm just an old man, who cares very much about you."

Tony paused to collect himself. "And I'm the man who killed the Avengers. I saw it. I didn't tell the team. How could I? I saw them all dead, Nick. I felt it. The whole world too. Because of me." He stopped and paced a bit before starting again. Fury's eye never left him. "I wasn't ready. I didn't do all I could."

"Maximoff girl, she's working you Stark." Fury tried to brush it off. "Playing on your fear."

"I wasn't tricked Fury, I was shown. It wasn't a nightmare it was my legacy. The end of the path I started us on."

Without moving Matariel drew all the attention in the room to himself. "Stark. You can't see the future, this I can guarantee. I know people who can and you are nowhere near as unhinged as you would be if you could."

"I watched my friends die. Matariel. You don't know what that's like."

"I know what it's like to watch my parents die."

"Uncalled for. You know what the worst part was?"

"The worst part was that you didn't." Fury interjected. Tony didn't have a response for that.

Teli, however, did. "Pogo."

Matariel nodded. "Yeah that does stink of the Pogo paradox. Stark, you lack trust. I suggest you fix that before you self-destruct."

"You don't get to talk about trust." The genius said. "Not when I'm the only one here who's not allowed to keep secrets."

"It's not that we don't trust you to do the right thing. It's that we trust you to do the wrong thing. Ultron proves that you need some form of restraint to stop you from doing things you shouldn't. I'd thought Steve would be enough, but apparently not." The tenno shook his head as he continued talking. "The warframes' very existence could be considered a war crime, and they're basically souped up prosthetics. At that level, mistakes cost not just lives, but entire ecosystems. Planets if it's really bad. So forgive us for withholding our knowledge."

The group was silent for several minutes. Eventually Fury looked outside. "It's getting dark. Let's take this into the house. Maybe get something to eat."

* * *

When the group entered the house, everyone else was already sitting down to eat.

"Fury? I don't know why I'm surprised." Steve said when he caught sight of the ex-director.

Natasha smirked. "Yeah I got used to it a while ago. It's not new."

"What's not- Oh, Fury." Bruce said, poking his head out from behind the pantry door. "Laura said we're free to raid the pantry." He waved an apple in the tennos' general direction. "Dunno if y'all actually eat or…"

"I'll pass." Matariel said. "From what I've determined, we don't have to eat, but we can. I personally haven't eaten in a few years. But biologically speaking we can still process food and it does improve one's health, if Rain and Theris are anything to go by."

"Fascinating." Bruce said, biting his apple. "If you don't mind, I'd like to study that if we get past this."

Fury snorted. "What do you mean 'if'? We are getting through this. Ultron took you out of play to buy himself time. My contacts all say he's building something." As he spoke, Teli, who'd left her warframe on the front porch, quietly walked over to the kitchen and pulled some grapes out of the fridge. Pointedly making a show of eating them in front of Tony. "With the amount of vibranium he made off with, I don't think it's just one thing."

"Duplicates?" Matariel said, thinking out loud.

Steve leaned on a nearby doorframe. "What about Ultron himself?"

"Oh, he's easy to track." Fury said. "He's everywhere. The guy is multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit."

Matariel nodded to himself. "Duplicates."

Fury continued. "It still doesn't help us get and angle on any of his plans though."

Tony took aim at the room's dart board. "Is he still going after nuclear launch codes?" He asked.

"Yes, he is. But he's not making any headway."

"I cracked the Pentagon's firewall in high school on a dare." Tony threw his dart and aimed a second.

Fury began fixing himself a sandwich. "Well I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that."

"Nexus?" Steve asked.

"World internet hub in Oslo." Banner answered. "Every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth. Well, before they showed up." He gestured at the two tenno.

Clint picked up a couple of darts. "So, what'd they say?" Without so much as a second to aim, he threw them at the dart board, nailing the centerpoint without any trouble. Tony gave him a frustrated look before flinching out of the way as four more darts flew by in quick succession, each landing within three inches from the center. Both Avengers turned to look at Teli, sitting twice as far away as Clint, and she went back to eating her grapes.

Fury ignored the exchange. "He's fixated on the missiles. But the codes are constantly being changed by parties unknown."

"Do we have an ally?" Natasha asked.

"Ultron's got an enemy. That's not the same thing." Fury said as he grabbed something to drink. "I'd pay folding money to know who it is though."

Tony pulled the darts from the board and handed them back to Clint, who made his way back to where Teli was sat, and took aim again. The genius, knowing he was way outclassed, instead entered the dining area. "I might need to visit Oslo then." He said. "Find out our unknown."

Natasha sighed. "Well, this is good times boss, but I was kinda hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that."

"I do." Fury said simply. "I have you. Back in the day I had eyes everywhere. Ears, everywhere else. You kids had all the tech you could dream up, and very able people willing to put them through their paces. Here we all are, with nothing but our wit and our will to save the world. Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission. And whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction." Fury gestured at the house around him. "All this, laid in a grave. So we stand. Outwit the platinum bastard." He sat down in one of the dining chairs.

"Language." Teli said.

"Yeah, Steve doesn't like that kind of talk." Natasha smiled.

"You know what Romanoff?" Steve acknowledged the jab.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked.

"To become better." Steve responded. "Better than us. He keeps building bodies."

"Person bodies." Tony chimed in. "The human form is inefficient. Biologically speaking, we're outmoded."

"Oh ye of little faith." Matariel said. "We were naught but human for tens of thousands of years, and yet we survived the Void."

"The point is," Tony continued. "He keeps coming back to it. Why?"

Natasha leaned back in her chair. "When you two programmed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed."

"They don't need to be protected." Bruce said, looking at Clint's daughter's drawing. "They need to evolve." At that every pair of eyes in the room were on him. "Ultron's going to evolve."

"How?" Matariel asked.

"...Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

Matariel let out a string of Orokin swears. "The pod. He's building vibranium body with her tissue cradle. We have to get over there fast."

"Helen would never do that. She said it could only print tissue, not a whole body." Bruce objected.

"No, idiot human it can." The insult carried no bite, only worry. "He took the scepter, remember? He can force it out of her, she's smart enough to make the changes to the base design. The warframes are made of flesh and strong, but mundane, metal. What happens if vibranium gets thrown into the mix?"

Steve went into Captain America mode in a split second. "I'll take Natasha and Clint."

"We'll come with." Matariel said.

Tony was already moving to the door. "I'll hit the Nexus, find our guy, and join you as soon as I can."

"If Ultron's really building a vibranium based body…" Steve joined him in the front hall.

"There's a high chance it'll be able to bring down a warframe, the rest of us would be toast." Tony said. "An android designed by a robot."

Steve chuckled. "You know I really missed the days when the weirdest thing science ever created was me."

"Don't worry Steve." Matariel said. "I'm still living them."

Fury passed by and grabbed his coat. "I'll drop Banner off at the tower. You mind if I borrow Ms. Hill?"

"She's all yours. Apparently." Tony told him. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." Fury smiled. "Something dramatic, I hope." With that he disappeared into the night.

* * *

AN: I'm going to respond to the last couple of reviews I've gotten since the last time I updated.

A guest pointed out that I'm not too good about making it clear which tenno is talking sometimes, and I think that stems from my attempt to make the conversations as snappy as they are in the movies, but in the movies there are a bunch of visual queues and voice recognition that I just can't get in text, so I'll work on that. I express to my family that I've gotten into writing and subsequently received an influx of books about how to write. One of them is by Stephen King. So that'll be fun.

Another guest asked if I am dead. I think so, but I can't be sure if that's not true or if Death just hasn't told me yet.

Another person didn't even make it through the first chapter before he couldn't take the tenno talking anymore. Dunno if that's stemming from the same place as the one above, but he wasn't very nice in his wording. I hope his favorite book gets a bad Netflix adaptation.

3 hours ago someone asked if I was going to update anytime soon...yes. (Totally not the reason I'm updating right now psshhhhhh what are you talking about)


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